poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

............Glorious.

One of the great things about Plath's poetry is the way it can be perceived on many different levels or differently by different people. Personally, I think this poem is about drugs. Obviously Heroin comes from the Opium poppy, and this may be Plath's drug of choice. It is most evident when she says "Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling." I believe the two 'Poppies' poems are representative of a brief experimentation with drugs, the October poem perhaps being about overdose as she takls about an ambulance. However, this is just my opinion...

iain as a fellow plath lover i don't wish to condemn what you said actually you are quite right, but what i believe is, that this poem was written during the time that hughes (plath's husband), was having an affair and this poem is a terrifying glimpse into her frustration and anguish. in the first half of this poem she yearns for the reality of pain, "i put my hand among the flames" and in the second she wishes to sink into death's arms through an overdose, hence the central symbol of poppies; violent connotations of war and peaceful death of an overdose.

No, the woman in the ambulance had not overdosed on any drug, she is just in clear obvious pain. The blood blooms through her chest, obviously an open wound, but she cannot help but be enchanted by the poppy flowers, as sylvia is.