Sylvia Plath was one of the key poets of the confessional poetry movement of the 1950s, which focused on themes that were theretofore considered taboo, such as sexuality and mental health. Confessionalism also marked a significant movement away from traditional versification and structure, moving more towards free form and other subtler ways of conveying tone and flow.
For this writeback, I’ve decided to try and repurpose one of Plath’s most controversial poems, “Daddy” and change it from being a deeply personal problem reflecting her strained relationship with her father and the fear she had to live with as a result of it, to a more socially centred poem that instead reflects on political turmoil that has followed from the historic election of Donald Trump as the President of America.
I chose “Daddy” as my source poem in part because of its simple format. The text is predominantly in free verse, and Plath chooses not to utilise a conventional rhyme scheme, instead opting to use repetition of words and sounds for effect. In particular, the repetition of the pronouns “I” and “You” are prominent, almost obsessive, cementing its reading as a confessional poem. This also sparked some intrigue, as a comparison could be made. Also pervasive is the usage of words that rhyme with “you”, especially at the ends of lines – a particularly significant example is “Jew”, especially in reference to herself.
I have chosen to keep most of the source poem intact in order to explore the theme of appropriation. Arguably one of the most controversial aspects of “Daddy” is its hyperbolic comparison of Plath’s suffering at the hands of her own father to the persecution of the Jewish during the Holocaust. This is a choice that has been widely criticised by those who believe that Plath “did not have any sort of warrant to use the experience of the Holocaust victims as a way of articulating her personal emotions” (1). In “By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature”, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi measured up both sides of the argument, concluding that Plath’s psychological identification with Jewish genocide victims “represents a kind of devaluation of the particularity as well as the monstrosity of the historical experience” (2). The truth of the matter is that regardless of the severity of her experience, the Holocaust both literally and symbolically dwarfs the message she is trying to communicate with the poem, resulting in the impression that she used such imagery merely for shock value. I personally disagree with the appropriation of the struggles of a race or a group that is not your own to reflect your personal struggles, especially not one which has had to endure such historically abhorrent treatment, and as such I felt it just that I should appropriate her own struggles to reflect those of a collective.
To reflect this, most of the language used has been changed in the writeback; most notably, the use of the pronoun “I” has been changed instead to “we” to reflect that it is from the perspective of the disillusioned masses rather than a singular person. Any reference to the Holocaust or the Nazis in general has been replaced with Trump’s popular mannerisms, such as “folks” instead of “Luftwaffe” (line 42) (the term which he most commonly uses to refer to his fervent supporter base), or the word “grab”, which is most frequently associated with his allegations of sexual assault. To segue on from this and also provide some contrast, a single entire line has been kept identical to the source; “Every woman loves a fascist” (line 48). This is to reflect his general attitudes towards women.
 I kept the overall structure of the poem much the same – I felt as though Plath’s subtly sarcastic tone throughout would be equally apt for the idea of rejecting Trump as an oppressive authority figure. The childlike, singsong nature of the poem also adds to the derisive tone of the poem. Additionally, I feel like some of the contents of the poem may even be more suited than the subject matter in the source poem for addressing Trump; in particular, “your gobbledygoo” in line 42 of the original poem could just as easily be applied, albeit in a vastly different context, to Trump – whereas the original uses the term stylistically to reflect the nature of her relationship with her father where it can be interpreted that she feels infantilised and vulnerable, it can also refer equally well to Trump’s peculiar methods of oration, which has been subject to much as derision as it has been to academic study. Linguist Mark Liberman suggests that his conversational style, filled with false starts and unfinished sentences(3) , may have actually contributed to him bolstering his supporter base, as he may do this under the calculated assumption that his supporter base, who would already be familiar with his ideas, will finish his sentence for him. I have tried to utilise this concept in part in the end of my first stanza, where the chant of “USA” is cut off abruptly to run onto the next stanza in a different way.
To conclude, I had intended this writeback to be mostly an exercise in reclamation and positive appropriation. Although I have been mostly critical of the poem, I don’t believe that Plath was ignorant about the impact a metaphor as hyperbolic as the one in Daddy would have. Ultimately, I believe both “Daddy” and my writeback hold essentially the same message of resisting one’s oppressors in the hopes that whatever damage they have caused (or will cause) will heal quicker.

Bibliography
1.	Yu-tung Teh, “The Controversy of the Holocaust Metaphor in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy””
2.	Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, “By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature”
3.	Prof Mark Liberman, “Trump’s Eloquence”,
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20492