A poem-by-poem engagement with Sylvia Plath's Ariel and the towering mythology surrounding it.

When I am a bitch I feel in such good company.
Nice girls never gave me anything but trouble,
Eating the ground out from under me, then waving
As I fall. Pity one has to die to see how liberating
Bad can be. But what news had I of my own self?
Words landed like razors, hours tinkled, suitors arrived.
Listen, you'll think otherwise, but I tell you, betrayal
Is your Get Out of Jail Free card. Take it,
Don't look back. Of course you will. Look back.
We always do, we who adore the muscle
Of our cashmere cells, a cock that makes
Our knees weak. Darlings, don't be sweet,
Or serviceable. Don't accommodate,
Write in blood or don't bother ...

Where were you when you first read Ariel? Who were you? What has changed in your life? In the lives of women? In My Ariel, Sina Queyras barges into one of the iconic texts of the twentieth century, with her own family baggage in tow, exploring and exploding the cultural norms, forms, and procedures that frame and contain the lives of women.

Sina Queyras is an accomplished poet and essayist. She edited the first anthology of Canadian poetry published by an American press (Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets). Between 2005 and 2007 she co-curated the path-breaking feminist Belladonna* reading series in New York and was instrumental in bringing Canadian and American poets into conversation. She has published six books of poetry and a novel, Autobiography of Childhood (2011). She received the Pat Lowther Award and a Lambda Literary Award for Lemon Hound (2006). Her most recent book of poetry is MxT (2014).

Sina Queyras' profile page