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Reflecting on Truth and Identity: A Deep Dive into Sylvia Plath's 'Mirror'
Unlock the secrets held within Sylvia Plath's "Mirror," as Varsha and I journey through the poem's reflective depths. Our latest episode is an exploration of truth and self-perception, where we meticulously analyze the mirror's role as a dispassionate chronicler of reality. We discuss the concepts of aging, identity, and the powerful emotions tied to our reflections, both literal and metaphorical. Varsha, with her keen literary insights, joins the conversation, adding richness to our interpretations as we navigate Plath's masterful use of language and symbolism.
As we dissect "Mirror" line by line, we uncover the mirror's perspective as an authoritative 'little god,' offering an unflinching look at the complexities of self-awareness and perception. The discussion ventures into the realm of femininity and societal expectations, sparked by the poem's evocative imagery. Varsha and I share our personal evolutions with the text, and the emotional resonance it holds, painting a vivid picture of the struggle between our true selves and how we're seen.
The episode culminates in a profound dialogue on identity and the relentless march of time, as seen through the eyes of the woman in the poem. Varsha and I delve into the significant impact aging has on our relationships and self-image, questioning the void left by external validations. We illuminate the intricacies of how societal focus on appearance profoundly affects us, inviting you to join us for an episode that not only explores a literary masterpiece but also offers introspective muses on our very essence.
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Hello friends, welcome back. We took a break from the holidays, but we're back discussing poetry, and today I have my friend Varsha with me. Varsha, thank you for coming by.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, steve. I have wanted to read poetry for a long time and I'm really glad that you started that thing on Patreon. I don't know how, but we're learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I don't know how either, but we'll figure it out as we go. This one was a tough one. There's just so many layers to it. I think that you can pull out of it. I guess that's kind of the point is that there's so many things you can take away from it. There's just so many layers to it, and it depends on your perspective too. It'll be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I always wondered. I know a lot of these. You're supposed to interpret how you want, especially with poetry, but I always wonder which one of the interpretations the author intended, or which several of the interpretations the author intended, or poet, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this one. Yeah, when I first go through it I try not to look at any other perspectives and just try and take what I get from it. And then I read all of yours and you know whoever posts on the threads on the forums. It'll be fun to go through it. Yeah, cool, I think, since there's two stanzas. I think there's two stanzas. I usually go by stanzas, but I think this one will go line by line. So I'll go ahead and read it off first and then we'll just go. We'll come back and go each line and kind of give our thoughts on each one. So this week we're doing Mirror by Sylvia Plath and yeah, it's funny because when we post it on the forum there's a lot of the people who usually have a lot to talk like. A lot of them are like this is like too much, like this I don't even know where to start. So it worried me a little bit. But okay, so let's go ahead. And so if you are listening at home and want to kind of go line by line, so go ahead and pull it out with us and we will. I'll read it first and we'll go back.
Speaker 1:So the poem is I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever you see, I swallow immediately, just as it is unmissed by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful. The eye of the little God forecornered. Most of the time I meditate. On the opposite wall it is pink with speckles. I have looked at it for so long. I think it is part of my heart, but it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back and respect it, reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes Each warning. It is her face that replaces the darkness In me. She has drawn to young girl and in me an old woman rises towards her day after day like a terrible fish.
Speaker 2:That is really something. I had so many emotions through the reading of this poem, not the first time. The nice thing about poetry, I suppose, is you can read it five times over in an hour this one. Each time I understood more, I got more out of it. It was amazing. I started almost feeling bored by it. I ended up with, oh my God, I love this poem. I think this might be the favorite of the one we have discussed so far.
Speaker 1:Wow, this one I think is a warm-up to next week's, which is Lady Lazarus. That one, wow, I haven't gone through it in detail yet, but that's something let's be good one to start with. It is in reading it now again, after I have some time away from it. Those two stands, those are very different from the mirror, and then we have the lake. We'll go through that. The first line. I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. What are your thoughts on that first one?
Speaker 2:I think, a lot of how. Again, this is how we read it. After reading it multiple times, the interpretation of each line is very much colored by what we know is coming, at least for me, the silver and exact. Since this is about a mirror, it feels especially with the contrast with the lake. Later on this feels like a very clinical statement of fact. I am silver, I don't have any preconceptions, I don't change anything that I see. It also feels like the mirror is building up a bit of a defense for itself, because people tend to be, angry at it for some reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think kind of what I have written down from our first read is that, like you said, no preconceptions, which is the truth, but I think part of it here is one of the questions I had was whose truth? Yes, because it's only the truth. I have no preconceptions. So is it what we want to see or what we think we see? Does it change anything? Or is it almost like we're being convinced that there's no preconceptions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does feel like someone trying to convince us of their innocence, right, like the first few lines that you're angry at me, it seems like, or unhappy with me for some reason. But I have no preconceptions. I'm not coloring anything that you see, this comes later. But I'm not being cruel either, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the second line I think is interesting because it is whatever you see I swallow immediately. So what are your thoughts on that one?
Speaker 2:I was very confused by the use of the word swallow. Maybe I think it might be explained later on in the. When we talk about the mirror staring at the wall, it might become a bit clearer perhaps, or there's an interpretation there that I like to use for the word swallow. But mostly, yeah, like we know that we're talking about a mirror here and so instead of saying reflecting, it's saying I swallow what I see. So I think at this point I'm just curious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, For me, what I had written down was that it's immediate. So what we, you know, we stare into and we see immediately what we're, what we are, you know, faced with. Now that we're, now that we've read it, I wonder if the swallow part has any link to the second, to the last line, which is in me. She has drowned a young girl. I wonder if swallow like water.
Speaker 2:Swallow your time, your thoughts about yourself. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, yeah, I'll talk about a little bit more about swallow when we get to the last few lines, but I like that. I like that you pointed out immediately. I had a snarky note to myself about only as controlled by the speed of light, but other than that, the immediately also. Yeah, I didn't notice that before, but yeah, that's also interesting that I guess maybe it's still in the argument building department that I'm not spending time adding any color to this, it's just I'm sending it or I'm devouring it. I am so eager for this that I'm devouring it.
Speaker 1:I think devour is a good way to put it. Whatever you see, I swallow immediately. It's a good way to put it, I think, devour is a good way to put it. So the third line, just as it is, un-misted by love or dislike.
Speaker 2:Un-misted again. So it's nice how we're seeing words that you know, things that typically a mirror does, but somehow Twisted slightly, right it's still. I guess this is just building on top of the previous lines about. I think this is sort of. The next line is sort of the culmination of the first four bits. I think the end of the defense that I'm not Cruel or I'm not adding any additional layers to what you're seeing, it's claiming that so and I missed it is interesting because mirrors tend to mist over but then, like, a mirror is not really in control of that. So you think you're not misting it over but there may be layers in between you and the mirror that that adds things. That adds meaning that the middle did not intend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the unmisted, the unmisted. The word unmisted I kind of took as like a mirror being. You know it has to be flat, has to be like a Can't be damaged again. It has to be like a, like a smooth surface kind of unmisted. It has like clarity. Hmm, yeah, yeah it's like it's raw is what I have written. So, as you're, as you're mentioning that, the next one I am not cruel, only truthful. I think that has to do with what you said, like the defense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, the defense, right like I I don't know that I have much more Than that to say about, like, when we finish reading through the poem, perhaps we can talk about the high level interpretations of it. I have a few different ideas that I'd like to discuss, but yeah, at the moment it just is the mirror. The mirror is a character in this right, like it's easy to. It seems to be a poem about the woman, sure, but I think the mirror is just as much, if not an equal character, if not even more, of a presence in the poem, which you could argue is obvious, given that it's from the mirrors point of view, but it we don't really Necessarily think about it as a character. That makes sense, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, doesn't I think to that point. The next line, the eye of a little God For cornered, I think, the, the little God, almost like the power that we give it or the power that this person is giving it, the power that we, we prescribed, you know, we give to the, to that reflection, kind of like we put so much emphasis on what we see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that that is the bit that I thought was very interesting in the first bit of this poem. Exactly what I had as well, steve the power that we give the mirrors, the ability to control what we think about ourselves, that gods maybe have, and and then the mirror is given that control and it seems to have some sort of I I'm curious about the mirrors feelings in this, like is it feeling arrogant about it or is it thinking that the Woman thinks of her that way? You know, maybe not, it's probably just the mirrors perception that I am almost a God in this regard, it's exerting the power over her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good way to put it to you. So the the next line. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall, what we are when.
Speaker 2:Your thoughts on that one um, I guess it's got the sense that it's bored again. I think this makes sense to me with all four lines put in conjunction, the next four lines together, but the meditate on the opposite wall. It's just at this point. It's just that we have a board mirror who stares at the opposite wall to file away its time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I took that as almost like it's like it's always lingering, like it's always there.
Speaker 2:Hmm, nice yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:So the next one. It is pink with speckles. I have looked at it so long. I wonder where the by use by pink is used in this one.
Speaker 2:Hmm, that's interesting. I don't think of that. I focused on the speckles, that it has deformities and Just like so it in in the next line of the mirror saying I think it is part of my heart, but it flickers. So it's reflecting the woman in a very deep sense here, in that the woman staring at the mirror and focusing on all its hope, presumably focusing on all her Deformities, and the mirror seems to be doing the same thing, that she's staring at it, that the mirror staring at the wall for so long that it starts to think that that's what it is hmm, interesting.
Speaker 2:But that's a good question Did you have any ideas on why pink I?
Speaker 1:thought, maybe like femininity or like um, but I don't want to. It seems a little too much, it seems a little too obvious, you know. So I don't want to. It seems like that'd be too easy. So the next one is I think it is part of my heart, but it flickers hmm, the, yeah, this.
Speaker 2:I think what I said before about the the mirror Doesn't think it is who it is, it's what it's seeing reflected in itself. Just like the woman might be giving the mirror enough power Over her that she starts to think what she sees in the mirror is the real thing. And I had another point to add to that, but I forgot Go ahead. Okay it'll come back to you.
Speaker 1:So the next one is faces, and darkness separate us over and over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think. What did you think of that?
Speaker 1:This one. I thought faces and darkness separate us over and I thought we, we go to, we go look in the mirror and then we, we move away from it and while we're not there staring at it, it doesn't really see anything.
Speaker 2:Does it while while we're not there. Yeah, yeah that that that makes sense. It's like the impression I had was of the mirror staring at the wall and I, I don't know like, I started by saying I think the mirror is bored of staring at the wall, right, but then it feels at this point like it's saying that I want to keep staring but other things are interrupting me and like changing the image and I guess we don't know how it feels about it. But some is like you know, they're getting in my way, kind of like when we look in a mirror and if someone comes in the way and things are not and we don't see, like something comes between us in the mirror, something's coming between the mirror and the opposite wall.
Speaker 1:Also had written down that we always look, we're always searching for our own identity in the mirror. But yeah, just so many different interpretations.
Speaker 2:Did you get that from the faces and darkness that breed us over and over?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah kind of like within ourselves too. We, we look, we search for identity, we look, we, we look to this little god for it to tell us who we are or like what we are like we search for our identity and what we see, not Because we give it so much power. So let me go to the next stanza, which is, you think, a transition. So it goes now. I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Speaker 2:I think this was the line that changed the most for me across my many reed of the poem, knowing how it ends like. At first I thought she was talking about a literal lake, and there's this contrast between the clear perfection of a glass mirror, which the first Stanzas presumably talking about, and then the lake is a shaky surface. So for some reason this woman ended up out of the lake. Sure, doesn't make a lot of sense, but but then I started to think, since it ends with how In the lake she drowned a young girl and became an old woman. I'm starting to think that the woman's may be losing her sight and so the mirror is not clear to her anymore. It's shaky. The images she's she's seeing are shaky, so she's losing her eyesight. That's why it's a lake, no longer a clear perfection mirror.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Hmm, yeah, because I think the lake yeah, cuz I kind of took that to those reflection but it's a natural, it's an, it's a, the lake is natural, like it's water. So, yeah, that's that line kind of threw me off. It's a big change from yeah I.
Speaker 2:Think my final interpretation is that it's still the same mirror. The woman just can't see it very clearly anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, she's losing her sight, oh okay, I think about that way, so so that Actually makes sense. The next line searching for searching. My reaches for what she really is, almost like she's squinting and trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Which, which would be true, like even if it was just a little lake right, which makes it really beautiful, I think oh.
Speaker 1:Wow, I didn't think of it that way. You just totally changed my perception of this whole thing. So, yeah, so the next line, then she turns to those liars the candles or the moon yeah, this one also threw me off quite a bit the first few times.
Speaker 2:But I think Now what I think of it is, since she can't see clearly like I'm just building on that story now that she can't see clearly so she needs the lights, or she can't see clearly so she's trying to turn the lights on in some fashion, by maybe pulling the curtains open or turning or lighting the candles To get more light so she can see more clearly, because she doesn't like what she sees or she's not able to see clearly enough.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Wow, I'd see I'd view this totally different now, because when I first read that Because when I first read it, I was thinking about that it's surface level and the candles or the moon I wasn't sure about that or like almost like natural light, the moon being a natural light, but I like your your thoughts on that too like she's an older woman. Wow, okay, yeah, totally changed everything. So I see her back and reflect it faithfully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. The mirror is no longer building a difference, right? Or it seems like a more Grown-up bush. I guess I'm just doing my duty. I'm just doing what I'm meant to be, kind of like. I don't know, did the mirror grow up with the old woman?
Speaker 1:Kind of like. It's Like I kind of took it. Looking at it from that perspective is Reflect it faithfully, like it's almost like they've become friends, like it's like an acceptance there. Hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that, the acceptance, like, yeah, yeah, like the, the woman's also. Well, not exactly because the next line, she's still complaining, but the mirror's. The mirror at least seems to be more adjusted to it's role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think Huh okay. It makes sense again with this next one. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands and what you mentioned earlier about old age Makes sense about. You know the shaking and tears.
Speaker 2:I guess she doesn't like that she looks older than she feels. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I had. I just well, all I wrote down, for that is just emotion and the power, the power that we've given to the reflection. But I think I like it makes a lot more sense now that you mentioned that, because I did not even Think of that first time reading it. So the next one is I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Speaker 2:What do you think of that? Like the, I am important to her but stuck out to me quite a bit and I think that sort of led to some other interpretations of the poem that I like to talk about when we finish the line by line reading. But the, it seems it could be either and a continued assertion of power over her right, like the Clear, the silver and exact mirror had over her, like called itself a god. But now it's sort of dialed down to I am important to her, but is it just the mirror convincing itself because it wants to feel important, or is it still exerting the power that I have, this power asserting the power over the woman?
Speaker 1:So, almost like so, could it also be to that point? Could it also be that the woman has conceded or like kind of like given up, or kind of like accepted, or almost like a defeat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so the mirror is feeling less important and so it needs to assert back control in this way. So I was like, yeah, she still comes and goes, so I am important to her.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, yeah, because honestly, on that one under my my notes for that line, I just put a question mark to that. So each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, this. This is also. I'm just now thinking of this. I don't remember what I wrote down for it, but it feels like comparing with the previous one where she thinks, where the mirror thinks that the pink wall with the speckles is its identity and other people are interrupting the flow, interrupting its jam, because, like it enjoys staring at that wall, now she's identifying more with the woman that each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. So it's like it almost feels like it's the mirror's reason for existence. Not quite, but that might be over-interpreting, but I think it feels more concrete what the mirror thinks it is Earlier it was just random faces and darkness, but now it's darkness that gets replaced by her face.
Speaker 1:So to that point, could it be that the mirror has no power if we're not there to look into it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know the mirror needs is is only as important as when people give it the power. I like that. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Kind of like, if a tree falls on the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound kind?
Speaker 2:of thing, it only has the wall to give it. The wall then has power over the mirror, and then we can have a poem called the wall. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:That's true. So the next one is so this one in me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this I think I guess a passing of time. It just feels like a nice full stopper period to everything that's been said so far.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, for this one I had written down like time wasted, like attention given, time wasted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drowned a young girl. Yeah, that makes sense. I like that.
Speaker 1:And so the last one rises towards her day after day like a terrible fish.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:I okay, so I get the first part right. So rises towards her day after day. Okay, like a terrible fish.
Speaker 2:I was so thrown off by that. The only explanation after that is she's it's now a lake, so it has fish. And fish rise terribly.
Speaker 1:So I guess, if we look at it from the, from the, from the mirror or the reflection being powerful, so does the mirror see the person, the person looking into it, as like a fish, as like a, like a, like a helpless creature, like it's, like less than maybe? I have no idea, I'm, I'm, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I guess. Oh, is it that a fish outside of water is useless and this woman maybe loses her identity if she rises out of the lake, but then it almost feels like the fish is out to attack her somehow. Right this? Yeah, it's interesting. I like to know what's up with that fish. It can't be just because of the lake, it it? I'm sure there are many, many ways to conclude this without needing to go back to that lake situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not sure. Let me see if I can find something about the, the fish, see if I can cheat and look at what the fish might be. But while I look for that, what were your, what were your kind of overall thoughts on this?
Speaker 2:one. I did want to talk about the use of the word swallow before. I forgot to do that when we went over the lines that I had in mind. So when? So it feels like in the first stanza, the last four bits, where the mirror, the last four lines, the mirror staring at the pink wall with the speckles, it feels like it has. It has and it knows that it has an empty existence and so it is devouring anything that comes its way with the woman and then like using that to build into the second stanza where she starts to, where the mirror starting to feel like the woman is part of her identity, I think part of its identity. She's seen so much of her now that the woman she saw, the mirror sort of making peace with the woman as someone that she needs to greet every day. I keep saying she for the mirror, but I think it's appropriate, right, like I'm accidentally saying that, but it feels appropriate, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I did find something on this. It's called greatsavercom there's a line here about. So the slippery and a nerving fish in the poem may represent that unavoidable darker self that cannot help but challenge the socially acceptable self. Hmm.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I feel like we missed the rest of the interpretation about the socially acceptable self in that version.
Speaker 1:It looks like, according to the. According to the site, overall mirrors and melancholy and even bitter bone. That exemplifies the tensions between inner and outer selves, as well as indicates that the prenaturally feminine problem of aging and losing one's beauty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think we're on the right track. But I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I meant missed as in don't know the context that they set to get to that line, got you? Yeah? So I think there's the obvious-ish interpretation about a woman or anybody, a person, associating their identity with the mirror right, having shallow notions of what their identity is or giving too much power to an external thing for how they feel. But another possibility I thought and I might be pushing it in both of these interpretations is it also feels a bit like you would talk about it's a parent-child relationship, or even just a relationship, and like with your partner, for instance, you get back what you put into it. You have, you see, identify yourself with the other person or with your child and what they are able to do or cannot do, and you also see yourself aging, like as they age you age too or with the child as they grow up. You feel like you're aging or you wring your hands, that you can't do all the things that they do. Maybe just I don't know, I don't have children, but I don't know if that's something that parents do, that at losing your youth while they have theirs. Maybe there's a mild feeling of that it felt like, and this is why it became such a big thing.
Speaker 2:We've only read three so far, but I loved the one about the night acquainted with the night. I loved that, and the other poem has always been a favorite. For this to become a favorite, I think it's a big deal. This was the first time I was getting acquainted with it, so the fact that we can interpret it in so many different ways, I absolutely loved about it. Did you have any other non-mirror interpretations?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's so many layers that you can kind of pull out of it. But I think just mortality, time, aging, kind of the I guess you could all kind of what I took out of it before reading some of the more like end up analysis in the last couple minutes is just like how much time we waste over those things or how much power we give those things and we spend so much time thinking about those things and when we come, we get older and we lose those things that we share, that we give so much power to, we prescribe, we sign this.
Speaker 1:You know, we give appearances and physical appearances so much power, so much time and attention that when we get old, it's like you look back and say I'm not old and all of those things that I was looking for are gone and it's time is fleeting right. So whether you liked what you see or you didn't, it all goes away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. I like that, and I think what you said is also interesting, because it's not necessarily just mirrors that this could be about. It could be anything that we associate our identity or sense of self with when we're younger, and then, as we grow old or more mature, it's no longer important, or you might feel like I don't have the ability to do this anymore as I grow older and you feel like you're losing your identity or sense of self. Still, this is very obviously about your looks, but it could be other things, and then also, maybe you're making peace with it. It doesn't feel like the woman has my peace with it, though. It feels like she's just still angry about getting old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think to that line, to that point she rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands, kind of like the tears, sadness and bitterness. Agitation of hands. I think earlier we talked about age and maybe that's just a consequence of getting older, like the shaking or not being able to hold steady, but it could also be, like you said, like anger or bitterness, and still holding on to that, the desire to love what you see and looking back, I guess, does anybody really?
Speaker 1:I mean look, I mean, does anyone love what they see every single time?
Speaker 2:I mean maybe somebody does, I don't know. Maybe there are so many pictures of myself that when I took them and I saw them immediately I think, ah, that sucks. And then, several years later, I look at it and I was like, that's a good picture. I wish I could look like that now. Yes, so the drowned feeling feels apt, except in maybe in my case it's a FaceTime camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the drowned part I really love. Yeah, wow, what a poem. In me she has drowned a young girl. Well, she does. You mentioned earlier you described the mirror as a she, but in me she has drowned a young girl and in me an old woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah the mirrors gaining her identity, maybe, yeah, yeah, which was your favorite line? Or favorite two, three lines? Stop three lines.
Speaker 1:Let's see, I think if I had to pick a couple, or to pick just because of so, I think the first line well, I do like the eye of a little God for cornered from the first stands, I'd pick that one. From the second one I would maybe say in me she has drowned a young girl and in me an old woman. I think that's such a powerful line.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What about you?
Speaker 2:I think those are my favorites too, but I'll pick slightly different ones too, so we have more variety, I like. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon, because I had to think about it for so long to figure out what it means. But also I think I think I just like the mention of candles or what it makes the whole thing prettier somehow. I also like most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall because I think the mirror that she has given so much power over her, the woman, is also leading an empty existence. You know, like kind of I'm just thinking about thinking now about this comparison, but kind of like in social media, right Like things, you seek validation from people who are similarly seeking validation.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, it's wild. I also like the last line rises towards her day after day like a turbo fish. Just because it's like a turbo fish that those just like, and I think it gives it just adds so much to the entire poem. Those just for those four words.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like a terrible thing. Yeah, it's amazing, is it like? Even if you don't know why the hell that line is there, you can understand what it means on a very deep level. It's, it's really cool.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, it's, it's beautiful, it's beautiful poem. Yeah, yeah, it's a. I think later Lazarus will be even that's a long one, it's a long one.
Speaker 2:You may need a different strategy than the line by line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, unless you want to do like two hours long. Yeah, there's a lot of lines on that one, but Well, I'm glad you uh, glad you had time to this was a lot of fun, I was afraid.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having this for myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I filled up five journal pages, no 10 journal pages on it. So I had to talk about. Wow. I'll do Lady Lazarus next.
Speaker 1:You need more than five. I tried to fit all on one page and that was not successful, but I think Would you? When you mentioned about the lake and you know the, the old was swallowed. I think that gave me a totally different perspective than what I had originally. So, yeah, it's just the Hearing different. It can just change the way you perceive something.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like that, um, the image where it could be a crow, not a young woman, and you see one or the other, yeah, I think. For a long time I thought like she's literally in a forest somewhere or something and I couldn't figure out why. But but then once the old Woman interpretation clicked, like everything makes sense now it's always like a puzzle piece fitting together. That was really cool.
Speaker 1:Wow crazy, Well cool. So thank you again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me, steve and and I love listening to these episodes. Thank you for doing them on the podcast.
Speaker 1:It's a little little nerve-wracking about myself. So I'm glad that you had time, because this is a rough one. But in the meantime, where can people find you?
Speaker 2:you can find me on the Patreon forum because I hang out there a lot. I have a YouTube channel called reading by the rainy mountain if you'd like to listen to any of the tons of books, book discussions we've been having there. And yeah, you can find links to my podcast and other ways to reach me on the about page.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I'll have those links all down below. But so cool, yeah, you can find me on page doing commas. The best place that's like the only time is the only place I go to now. So, but awesome, so cool. So until next time. We'll talk to everyone very soon.
Speaker 3:Bye, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you you.
