Plath & Vonnegut

One should read Sylvia Plath, not out of curiosity about her famously troubled private life or the controversies around her marriage to Ted Hughes and his handling of her literary remains or for any other extra-literary concerns, but simply for the great power and beauty of her best work. Here's a favorite of mine, quiet yet intense and lovely:

Sheep in Fog

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells -
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut. There's an excellent tribute, with songs, at Straight, No Chaser.