I am delighted to say that my poem “Moscow,” after Sylvia Plath’s “Berck-Plage,” is now available in the Plath Poetry Project’s June Retrospective.

Telescopic bulge, distended by water—
the waterpark slide has an unfocused blue glow.

Spigot for lollipop-yellow kids on plastic donuts,
one shot after another, film rippling under wrinkled feet.

Flash-flash the sky flares then flattens to slate.
A boy wipes his hand over it and starts again.

How do they find the courage to plunge and plunge?
I sweep chlorinated beads from my shoulder and swim doggedly…

Read the whole poem

About the Plath Poetry Project

Between April 1962 and February 1963, the final months of her life, Sylvia Plath separated from an adulterous Ted Hughes and moved with their young children to London. She experienced England’s coldest winter in 100 years, cared in isolation for her frequently sick children, and faced the underwhelming reception of her now-celebrated novel The Bell Jar. During that time she wrote 67 poems, including many that are widely regarded as her finest work. The record of this productivity, anthologized in sequence and with date-stamps in her Collected Works, shows the fluxing process of one of the greatest poetic minds of the 20th century.

The Plath Poetry Project was begun to encourage writers to engage with Plath’s work and follow her writing schedule between April 1962 and February 1963. Every day that she wrote a poem, the editors of the Plath Poetry Project post that poem and share prompts and encouragement. It is a great project for thinking about one’s own writing process.

(If you enjoy writing poetry personally or professionally, it’s not too late to get involved. You can subscribe for reminders and writing prompts, and to receive the monthly retrospective.)