“Plath…reports that she’s used ‘the dregs of my inspiration’ to write six entries for a jingle-writing contest for Dole pineapple…. She also entered contests for Heinz ketchup, French’s mustard, Libby’s tomato juice, and Slenderella.”
—From “Sylvia Plath’s Last Letters” by Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker, November 5, 2018”
“How to Get an Edge”
The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
Slenderella!
“Lady Lazarus’s Kitchen”
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Try French’s mustard!
“A Cut Above”
What a thrill—
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of a hinge
Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.
Heinz ketchup!
“Not So Mad Anymore”
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
Thank goodness for Dole pineapple rings!
“American Products in Munich”
Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.
Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb
Where the yew trees blow like hydras,
The tree of life and the tree of life
Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.
The blood flood is the flood of love,
like the best tomato juice—that’s Libby’s!