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Tonality and Poetry
after you’ve listened to two readings of the same poem, one by a performer and the other by the poet herself, below are two questions to answer:
1. What differences did you note between the two readings? Consider aspects of Sound in poetry, such as the tone of the reader’s voice, the rhythm at which they read, and the emphasis being placed on certain words and lines from the poem.
2. Between the two readings, which did you prefer and why? Remember, just because the poet reads the poem doesn’t mean that’s the definitive way to read it. Sometimes the voice of the poet won’t match what the poem is about or what the poem is trying to convey.
For each question your response should be 250 words, making a total of 500 words for this assignment.
Metaphors in a Poem
This poem is a great example of the use of metaphor, in fact, this poem is metaphor heavy and fairly long. As you read,
pay attention to the metaphors Plath uses throughout the poem, as she draws on references to fairy tales, war, and the
Holocaust. Ask yourself “What is Plath really saying when she uses such metaphors about her father?”
To gain the full effect of the poem, please take a moment to read through it right now before clicking to the next
page. Again, take your time as you read it, as Poetry often asks us to slow down and really take in each word.
1
Daddy
by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time——
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
2
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,
The voices just can’t worm through.
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
3
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
The Poem as an Oral Form
Another thing to consider about Poetry is the aspect of Sound. In a poem, Sound is an extension of Language, where the words aren’t just a means of communication, it’s also treated like music. Poetry was originally an oral form that existed long before the written word and so how a poem was read and how it sounded was very important. A good example of this are folk songs, which were a way of transmitting stories from one generation to the next, because they were easy to remember and served as a form of entertainment. Poetry is an extension of the traditional song, which was written in verse and with a meter, sometimes even with a rhyme scheme. Though this tradition has since been lost, now that everything is written and archived and so there’s no need to actually use our brains to remember things, Poetry retains its musical roots and is an art of language that begs to be heard. So, try reading poems out loud, because in the same way that seeing a performance of a play (ie Dutchman) can change its meaning, when a poem is read out loud or actually heard, it’s meaning can also change. In fact, you might understand the poem better when you hear it read out loud.
Below is a reading of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” by another poet, Alyssa Paul. This should illustrate how a reading of a poem can change your understanding of it. Regarding this video, you only need to watch up until 3:40. After watching it, ask yourself how the poem’s meaning changed for you after hearing it read aloud.
The Poet’s Reading
Now that you’ve heard and seen Alyssa Paul’s reading of Sylvia Plath’s poem, let’s now listen to Sylvia Plath read her own poem and compare the two. What differences to you note between Paul’s and Plath’s reading?
