Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red
Was what you wrapped around you.
Blood-red. Was it blood?
Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
Haematite to make immortal
The precious heirloom bones, the family bones.
When you had your way finally
Our room was red. A judgement chamber.
Shut casket for gems. The carpet of blood
Patterned with darkenings, congealments.
The curtains -- ruby corduroy blood,
Sheer blood-falls from ceiling to floor.
The cushions the same. The same
Raw carmine along the window-seat.
A throbbing cell. Aztec altar -- temple.
Only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness.
And outside the window
Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail
As the skin on blood,
Salvias, that your father named you after,
Like blood lobbing from the gash,
And roses, the heart's last gouts,
Catastrophic, arterial, doomed.
Your velvet long full skirt, a swathe of blood,
A lavish burgandy.
Your lips a dipped, deep crimson.
You revelled in red.
I felt it raw -- like crisp gauze edges
Of a stiffening wound. I could touch
The open vein in it, the crusted gleam.
Everything you painted you painted white
Then splashed it with roses, defeated it,
Leaned over it, dripping roses,
Weeping roses, and more roses,
Then sometimes, among them, a little blue
bird.
Blue was better for you. Blue was wings.
Kingfisher blue silks from San Francisco
Folded your pregnancy
In crucible caresses.
Blue was your kindly spirit -- not a ghoul
But electrified, a guardian, thoughtful.
In the pit of red
You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness.
But the jewel you lost was blue.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Red By Ted Hughes
Posted by
Jess
at
6:21 AM
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8 comments:
Sure she was red, the anger color, the color of evil, was she evil?
"Red was your colour"- she wanted attention!
red= attract attention.
She used white to symbolise death, red can be blood. Blue is so calm.(Run with my thoughts) I think this is his meaning. What do you reckon?
Sylvia Plath used the colours red and white a lot in her poetry, I believed Hughes wrote this to create another perspective on their marriage. She was red because she was so passionate perhaps a link to her mental illness.
I believe he wrote this poem to show his regret at the way their marriage and her life ended. It is the last poem published in 'Birthday Letters', it makes one feel sympathetic towards Hughes by insinuating Plath's illness was the cause for all their porblems. But then, he writes it with sadness which ends his poem book with a very soft image of Plath.
It best sums up their relationship; full of passion but extremely volatile.
In addition to her use of the color red in her poetry, Sylvia was wearing red the night that they met. It made a huge impression on Ted. His own fondness for blue rings true in this poem.
In addition to her use of the color red in her poetry, Sylvia was wearing red the night that they met. It made a huge impression on Ted. His own fondness for blue rings true in this poem.
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