i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

from "Wanting to Die" by Anne Sexton, a good friend, colleague, and fellow suicide of Sylvia Plath:

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

by Jack Folsom, a Sylvia Plath "specialist", "The Poet in Residence":


Inside the flat she rents
she lives in a moon mirror.
She subsists on hot words
broiled under the cold dawns.

At night by candle-light
she counts the shadows
dancing on the white walls
before her sleeping time.

In the grey winter morning
she parts the window curtains.
She peers down at heads wrapped in scarves,
at legs shuffling footless in the snow.

In the dark of afternoon
she watches faceless forms crossing streets.
They crease the freezing ruts
in her forehead as she turns away.


from "In Sylvia Plath Country" by Erica Jong:

The skin of the sea
has nothing to tell me

I see her diving down
into herself --

past the bell-shaped jellyfish
who toll for no one--

& meaning to come back.

**

This is her own country--
the sea, the rain
& death half rhyming
with her father's name.

**

what could we tell you
after you dove down into yourself
& were swallowed
by your poems?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Michael Crichton wrote this novel called "Eaters of the Dead".  It's based off the ancient epic that every Hero's Journey story is based off of, Beowulf.  Here's what it says on the wikipedia page:

"In an afterword in the novel Crichton gives a few comments on its origin. A good friend of Crichton's was giving a lecture on the 'Bores of Literature.' Included in his lecture was an argument on Beowulf and why it was simply uninteresting. Crichton stated his views that the story was not a bore and was, in fact, a very interesting work. The argument escalated until Crichton stated that he would prove to him that the story could be interesting if presented in the correct way."

Everybody sees how this applies to Ilium Agonistes, right?  Great.