Sylvia Plath Makes Me Feel Uncool

Sylvia Plath makes me feel uncool.

When I read real writing, I feel like nothing I've done in my life
amounts to anything. I feel like my writing has been neutered. That my
voice has joined the moaning swell and I'm no longer commenting, I'm
being commented on. And no one likes to be the kid that gets talked
about. Everyone one wants to be cool.

Sylvia Plath makes me feel like I'm the opposite of cool.

Sylvia Plath makes me feel the way that Patti Smith makes me feel- like
an everyman. Powerless and small. Like the Them, instead of the Him.
Obvious and loathsome. Forgotten and forgettable.

A member of the audience.

Sylvia Plath makes me feel like my reach and my grasp are exactly the
same, but that I must have tiny tyrannosaurus arms. That what I rake in
is only my own soiled tissues. That my insect breaths drawn in only my
own used up air.

A cannibalistic hyena rolling in my own suicide carcass.

Patti Smith makes me feel like I have (am) wasting my youth. That
nothing is right unless it is singing with every cell of your body. I
only sing to myself in the car, and quietly. I know nothing about
heroes. I want to sing gospel. I am an Atheist.

Patti Smith makes me feel like a fake.

Sylvia Plath make me feel like a wallflower.

Being in the presence of genius makes me miserable, this is how I know
I'll never be important or do anything special-

I'm absolutely in love with my own mind.
I love myself.
I love my work.
I love this poem.