"Lady Lazarus": She Got Knocked Down, But She Got Up Again
     Considering Sylvia Plath's personal life was punctuated by bouts of depression, her 1965 poem reads like continually crashing and calming tidal waves. The overwhelming theme of death and rebirth manifests into several references ("Nazi lampshade", Jesus miraculously raising Lazarus from the dead, and concentration camps to name a few). Although she speaks prominently as she-Lazarus, Plath beautifully incorporates other allusions to paint the picture of her soul's ongoing cycle of death and rebirth.  

     From start to finish, "Lady Lazarus" packs solid defiance. The use of consonance reads with steady rhythm and percussive slam poetry; each syllable sings proudly with profound meaning as I imagine Ms. Plath throwing down at a slam session. The tough layers of punchy syllables appropriate struggle and the determination needed to rise again. The seventh stanza, "And I am a smiling woman," brings the poem into instant focus: we have now entered the No Spin Zone as Plath lays it out sardonically and without remorse. From here, each rise and fall chronicles the defining scars that strengthen and define for better or for worse. Grand empowerment merely mocks the constant threat of death that lurks in each stanza with the martyrdom of a Holocaust survivor: "And there is a charge, a very large charge / For a word or a touch / Or a bit of blood / Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. / So, so, Herr Doktor. / So, Herr Enemy. / I am your opus, / I am your valuable, / The pure gold baby." Finally, the last great struggle presents itself through fiery resurrection, much like a phoenix as Plath burns and rises again out the ashes.