When was mushrooms by sylvia plath written

For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. When you hear the word "poetry," do you think about depressed folks sitting around in black turtlenecks, writing about their horrible and depressing lives? If you answered "yes," then you may very well have Sylvia Plath to thank for this stereotype. Plath was one of the leading "confessional" poets, a group of writers who drew from their personal suffering in their writing.

Sadly, Plath had plenty to draw from. Her father died when she was only eight, and her marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes was no bed of roses, either. She poured all of this darkness into her poetry, but it's not just doom and gloom for the sake of being mopey or as an excuse to rock black turtlenecks.

Plath's poetry is filled with wild imagery and delicious language. First published in The Colossus and Other Poems , the poem and the book in general was received well, and most critics agreed that Plath was a poet to watch out for.

The most popular interpretation of the poem is that it's a feminist rallying cry, showing the struggles of women to assert themselves in a male-dominated society. Some have even theorized that it's inspired in some part by the way Plath felt overshadowed by male poets like her husband.

In , nineteen years after Plath's death in , Hughes published his wife's Collected Poems , which won the Pulitzer Prize. Maybe you're not a housewife living in the '50s. Okay, we're almost completely positive you aren't, unless you turned your washing machine into a time machine or something. Even if you aren't one of these stereotypically disempowered ladies that many say "Mushrooms" speaks for, we're pretty sure you can get into this poem. Advanced search X. Register For Poetry By Heart news, resources and competitions.

For Poem of the Week email. Login Username Password Forgotten your password? Show all poems. Mushrooms Sylvia Plath. Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. To ask these questions and to learn more about mushrooms, Poetry in America took a trip to the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts to speak with scientist Serita Frey.

Frey is a microbial ecologist who specializes in soil and fungi , and so we asked her to teach us about mushrooms in relation to this poem. How do mushrooms grow, and what is their relationship to dirt? To water? To air? To darkness and light? Do mushrooms really have toes, noses, or soft fists? Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room.