Bluebeard, The Spinster and Ariel

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Connaissez-vous Sylvia Plath ? Cette poétesse des années 50-60 qui, dans une vie éclair (elle se suicida à 30 ans) loin de toute la mièvrerie dont on affuble trop souvent l'écriture féminine, était plus proche des poètes maudits que des brodeuses de mots au point de croix.
Pour en savoir davatage sur elle : lire ses textes, aller faire un tour ici ou encore là (par exemple). 

Ce dimanche, je vous propose deux de ses poèmes.

En manière de célébration de la Saint Valentin de demain, voici le court Barbe Bleue :

Bluebeard

I am sending back the key
that let me into bluebeard's study;
because he would make love to me
I am sending back the key;
in his eye's darkroom I can see
my X-rayed heart, dissected body :
I am sending back the key
that let me into bluebeard's study. 

Pour continuer dans l'esprit Valentine's Day, voici également La Célibataire (voire la Vieille fille).

The Spinster

Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious April walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then!--
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock, each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.

But here--a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley--
A treason not to be borne. Let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set 
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.

(Vous pouvez en lire une traduction, qui n'est pas de moi, en français ICI)