Stillborn by Sylvia Plath

In "Stillborn", Plath unsettlingly compares the process of writing poems to child-rearing. Thus, poems, usually seen as just pure language, are likened to stillborn children with "toes and fingers...foreheads" still developing. Plath uses an irregular rhyming scheme in this poem, with the second and fifth line of each stanza having a regular or slant rhyme to each other. In the second stanza, the poem takes a more surreal turn with Plath bemoaning how fruitless her poem-children are again. Weirdly, she describes them being in "pickling fluid", which does not seem to be proper child or poem rearing procedure. I was pretty confused by this line. When Plath writes, "They smile and smile and smile at me," the repeated use of the word "smile" seems to convey a sense of aggravation and impatience at the poem-children's lack of development. Plath later complains that although the poem-children fully follow poetic standards, being "human" rather than being a "fish" or "pig" is likened to being a proper poem. Plath admits that the children's stillborn status is due to her being "dead with distraction", even though while developing these poems, they were once "alive".