Intellectual Property [sylvia Plath] Poem by Sally Evans

Who owns Plath?
Faber, the Feminists or Hughes,
or Otto Plath?

Whose are her pennings, whose
the course of her thudding words
that gave back

rhythms and colours lost so long?
Who heard that wonderful certain song?
Who owns Plath?

Let us look back
but once. The careering path
of the female comet, domineering, strong

havoc in an old monarchy,
establishment torn along
lady and gentleman gender borderlines,

orderliness long gone,
lands in a parish of pauper poets.
No harping tycoon

owns these trapped diamonds,
sparkling in dark laurels
under a sad moon.

Only the god who threw her down
to remind mortals of the Muse's crown
owns Plath.