To end the Women’s History Month for 2021, we bring you the poem Edge, by 20th century most admired poet, Sylvia Plath. Although diagnosed with bipolar and severe depression, many believe that her failed relationships with her authoritarian father and abusive husband were major factors that led to her suicide in 1963, when she was 30. The poem EDGE is a constant reminder of where society expects women to stay, “at the edge.” It is at the edge of life, at the edge of circumstance, at the edge of profession and existence, that a woman is considered perfect. Women must reject this place. Women belong wherever they choose-head, middle, center, frontline. Women must refuse to get “use to this sort of thing”. Women must resolve to take up spaces by force. Edge The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.
