Very powerful --not read this poem for about 3 years and have gained even more from it now. I read Plath and Hughes together, along with Dylan Thomas - a potent trinity -- I remember how the world expanded and became more secretive at the same time. Marvellous.

I think it is such a shame that people focus so much on Plath's questionable mental health and her relationship with Ted Hughes than her breath taking skill as a poet, she had an incredible talent. Daddy isn't a favourite of mine, but I love Ballons and Morning Song is one of my very favourite poems.

I enjoyed that one Paul. I haven't read it before. Parents are a difficult subject. I have tried without the same success as Plath.

Larkin had no difficulty talking about his parents, if you recall This Be The Verse:
They fuck you up your mum and dad
They may not mean to but they do
they fill you wiht the faults they had
and add some extra, just for you.
etc

This Be Worse

He fucked me up did Phillip Larkin
May not have meant to but he did
He filled me with the faults he had
And added extra, though not just for rme, obviously

And he in his turn, too, did fuck
Though did prefer for recreation
To bury his head in a book
And turn his hand to masterly versification

Man hands on misanthropy to man
It deepens when you're on the shelf
So get out as often as you can
And don't read Larkin's stuff yourself

Julian

The rhythms and the sounds of Plath are what appeal to me. The shock of the language. Check out her readings, if they're still on you tube. Daddy is electrifying in her deep midlantic tones. Like other commentators I wish people wouldn't see her stuff through the prisms of her relationship with Hughes or the subsequent suicide. She wrote some great Villanelles in her youth.