Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Stillborn," Sylvia Plath dives into the fraught emotional space surrounding the inability to bring her poetic creations to life. Through the extended metaphor of stillborn children, she explores the disappointment, anguish, and guilt that accompany the inability to fulfill the role of a creator, be it a parent or a poet. The poem reflects not only on the failure of the creation but also on the crushing weight this failure has on the creator herself.

The opening line, "These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis," immediately cuts to the core of the poem's thesis: the tragic incapacity of the works to manifest as living, breathing entities. They have "grew their toes and fingers well enough," suggesting they bear all the marks of poems that should thrive; they are structurally intact, well-formed, but inexplicably lifeless. The "little foreheads bulged with concentration," a line that poignantly conjures the effort and intention that went into their creation. Yet, despite all this, they "missed out on walking about like people," they remain inert, unable to engage with the world or to be engaged with.

The term "mother-love" highlights the emotional and psychological investment that the speaker has put into her poems, dispelling any notion that their failure to 'live' could be attributed to a lack of care or commitment on her part. There's a sense of mystery and inexplicability as the speaker exclaims, "O I cannot explain what happened to them!" Her disbelief shows that despite her efforts, the poems remain "proper in shape and number and every part," yet fundamentally devoid of life.

The lines, "They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid! / They smile and smile and smile at me," are unsettling. Here, the poems are like specimens in a jar-preserved, perhaps even pleasing to look at, but not alive. "And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start," the speaker laments, emphasizing the irrevocable stillness of her creations.

The poem culminates in an admission of utter despair, emphasizing how the speaker feels "near dead with distraction." In contrast to their creator's emotional disarray, the stillborn poems "stupidly stare and do not speak of her." The lifelessness of the poems becomes a reflection of her own incapacitation; they become specters of her creative impotence.

In "Stillborn," Plath grapples with the complexities of creative failure and the emotional havoc it wreaks on the creator. It's a poignant meditation on the relationship between a creator and their creation, laden with a sense of despair for what could have been but never was. At its core, the poem is a reflection of the frustration, emptiness, and even guilt that comes when one's creations fail to live up to their potential, leaving the creator in a state of emotional desolation.

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...