this goes together with the publishing of plath’s journals and the resistance among recipients of her work to read her poetry and her journals differently; this condescending mindset haunts the “confessional” poets. It reminds me of a jean michel basquiat exhibit i saw once: pages ripped out of his sketchbook were mounted next to his finished paintings, with no attempt on the part of the curators to draw a distinction between these two kinds of objects. it figured basquiat as some kind of idiot savant who created interesting things but had no intentionality or control. it is disrespectful beyond words, and also indicates the tremendous stupidity of critics and recipients, to frame these artists as people who can be definitively and conclusively understood in purely biographical/historical terms; to see these artists as sufferers of mental illness who happened to express themselves in a striking way is to completely negate them as what they were: incredible artists.
bongdanceking 