One of my favorite Sylvia Plath poems is actually short and sweet. It’s called “You’re,” and it is basically a silly love poem.
Here is the first stanza:
Clownlike, happiest on your hands,Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,Gilled like a fish. A common-senseThumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,Trawling your dark as owls do.Mute as a turnip from the FourthOf July to All Fools’ Day,O high-riser, my little loaf.
Among the many things this poem makes me think of are my high school English teachers. I remember how they would make us dissect poems and explain every line, every word.
I would have a difficult time of defining exactly what Plath meant by the following:
“…A common senseThumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.”
But, somehow, within the context of the piece, it is indeed a levelheaded, even heartwarming, phrase.
To read the rest of the poem, please click here. You will be sent to the Poetry Foundation’s archives.
ZETEO 