Sylvia Plath: Turn away all the peripherals

Go far and fast in a small space. Trim away all excess.

Poet and novelist Sylvia Plath:

I feel that in a novel, for example, you can get in toothbrushes and all the paraphernalia that one finds in dally life, and I find this more difficult in poetry. Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline, you've got to go so far, so fast, in such a small space that you've just got to turn away all the peripherals.

(source: The Poet Speaks: Interviews with Contemporary Poets)

Spotted in this review of Taylor Swift:

Sylvia Plath once called poetry ‘a tyrannical discipline,’ because the poet must ‘go so far and so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.’ Great poets know how to condense, or at least how to edit. The sharpest moments of The Tortured Poets Department would be even more piercing in the absence of excess.

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P.S. Check out my standup doc/special “Substance” (below) where I perform on various substances. It’s a wild ride. And I write about the craft of standup over at

Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian

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