At the moment our daughter is 36 weeks pregnant, and I inevitably thought of her when this morning I read this poem by Silvia Plath (1932-1962) describing the fetus in her womb. I find it an arresting poem with wonderful images: “Wrapped up in yourself like a spool”; “Snug as a bud and at home”; and “feet to the stars.” I find it interesting as well to think of the fetus as very close, inside the woman, and yet “Farther off than Australia.” It is both.

My wife, in contrast, thinks the poem overwritten, too contrived and tricksy. She has given birth to three children, so perhaps I should bow to her authority.

I found myself wondering if Plath had had an ultrasound scan when pregnant as the poem has images that might arise from a scan, and she may have done. Ultrasound scanning was introduced by a professor in Glasgow in 1956, and Plath gave birth for the first time in 1960. Her daughter with her brother was in the next room when Plath killed herself by putting her head in the gas oven in 1962. Every time I go to Primrose Hill, where Plath died, I think of her, and I realise through reading Wikipedia that I have a connection with her in that I knew her doctor, John Horder.

You’re by Silvia Plath

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.