This week’s Sunday Share is “A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem” by Sylvia Plath. A different take on Alice in Wonderland, Plath is a master of imagery and metaphor. I have found that much of my own writing is similar. I do not claim to be as skilled as Plath. More of her work can be found at The Best Poems Encyclopedia among many other poets.
A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem
I’m through with this grand looking-glass hotel
where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns;
methinks I shall absent me for a while
from rhetoric of these rococo queens.
Item : chuck out royal rigmarole of props
and auction off each rare white-rabbit verb;
send my muse Alice packing with gaudy scraps
of mushroom simile and gryphon garb.
My native sleight-of-hand is wearing out :
mad hatter’s hat yields no new metaphor,
and jabberwock will not translate his songs :
it’s time to vanish like the cheshire cat
alone to that authentic island where
cabbages are cabbages; kings : kings.
Plath, Sylvia. “A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem.” The Best Poems Encyclopedia, The Best Poems Encyclopedia, 14 Jan. 2019, www.best-poems.net/sylvia-plath/sorcerer-bids-farewell-seem.html.
James Pack 