Coke College Scholarship

Poems, potatoes (another woman who reflects on the language)

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POEMS, POTATOES

The word, defining, muzzles and the path towards
it excludes other, more nebulous and prosperous, murderess,
in structures where the verses are just imagined

spectral presences. As solid potatoes,
like stones, without conscience, speech, and to last,
if you give them space. Not a question of rudeness (though

rethinking often would take a change in
delicacy, elegance), but the fact that I
cheat more than necessary: \u200b\u200bmore

or different, continue to leave unsatisfied.
not celebrated in verse, not painted, the potato
accumulates its brown warts on this page
infinitely superior, and so the raw stone.

Sylvia Plath, 1958