Read: The Occupation of a Woman Writer
“When I wrote as a young girl, I pictured an amiable reader — distracted or skeptical, perhaps, but still somewhat willing to approach my work with an open mind. A playful love for language fueled my writing then, a love for rearranging sounds and spaces on the page. When I found a battered copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel on my parents’ bookshelf, between my mom’s Agatha Christie paperbacks and my dad’s broken-in Barbara Tuchman tomes, I wanted to burrow into her stanzas and live there, to tattoo her metaphors onto both wrists. I’d never read poetry like this: “Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.” I was stunned, and I set out desperately to emulate her. When I wrote those early poems, I wasn’t trying to impress; I didn’t wonder if anyone would question or mock my attempts. I wrote for the joy and sheer release of it. The brutal magic of that book has never left me.”
*Excerpt from Longreads, “The Occupation of a Woman Writer” by Kiley Bense
*Image of Sylvia Plath by savantdesigns
