“Nick and the Candlestick,” by Sylvia Plath

The blood blooms clean in you, poem.

Sure, this is about Plath’s pregnancy with her son Nick, and it’s the opposite of jolly, but there’s more bloody incarnation and nativity here every time I read it.  Merry Grave, Unflinching Christmas to us.  I’ll be back later this week to cleanse your palates with a more traditional jubilation.

I read “Nick and the Candlestick” from Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems (Faber 1981).  Amazon sells this this edition (Harper 2008).  And you can watch Seph Rodney read it here as part of the Favorite Poem Project.