Jonathon Zapasnik

Wrote a PhD (@ANUslll) on how HIV/AIDS is imagined & constructed in life writing genres. Interests in Sylvia Plath, historical & literary biography. He/him.

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #134: Parliament Hill Fields. This poem captures invisible grief: 'Your absence is inconspicuous; / Nobody can tell what I lack'. Amid a cold world where 'the round sky goes on minding its business', loss lingers, unseen but deeply felt #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #133: Walking in Winter. A descent into trauma & decay — 'the tin of the sky' & 'an assembly-line of cut throats' evoke a world where suburbia, death & dream logic collide. Nothing heals; even the sea 'hushing their peeled sense' offers only numbness #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #132: A Life. The speaker appears to hover between worlds—a sealed world 'clear as a tear' & a ravaged, emotionally raw present—observing both with a kind of clinical empathy. Memory is ornamental, but the grieving self remains outside; can't enter #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #131: Candles. The poem’s candles 'ignore / A whole family of prominent objects' to 'plumb the deeps of an eye'—rejecting the practical for private, romantic feeling. Their tender glow clings to nostalgia in a world that demands daylight & clarity #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #130: Magi. 'Loveless as the multiplication table', the poem mocks sterile ideals—'papery godfolk' chasing Plato—while celebrating a child’s earthy wisdom: love as 'the mother of milk', not theory; a case for lived experience over abstraction #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #129: Love Letter. 'Like a stone' & 'as a black rock', the speaker begins in a state of lifeless inertia—frozen, untouched by the world around them. This stillness gives way to a miraculous resurrection, as they awaken 'from stone to cloud' #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #128: Leaving Early. Cut flowers 'sipping their liquids like Monday drunkards' & petals that 'tap like nervous fingers' — The poem stages a haunting temporal collapse: beauty rots in real time; the present is swamped with traces of the past #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #127: Two Campers in Cloud Country. In this poem, the self dissolves in nature’s vast indifference—'It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little'. The wild erases history, ego, even memory: 'We’ll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn' #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #126: Sleep in the Mojave Desert. A desert where 'noonday acts queerly' & 'the crickets come creeping into our hair'. The landscape is 'untouchable'. Mirages blur memory & desire, while humans, reduced to their barest physicality, endure the heat #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #125: On Deck. A surreal midnight voyage captures passengers adrift in isolation & quiet absurdity. 'Wrapped up in themselves' & 'castled in [their minutes]', they cling to faith, fantasy, & delusion as the sea carries them toward an uncertain future #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #124: Stillborn. This poem captures the pain of creative failure—poems 'proper in shape and number', yet 'the lungs won’t fill and the heart won’t start'. Art is lifeless & leaves the creator 'near dead with distraction', mourning what might have been #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #123: The Hanging Man. The poem opens with a violent moment of divine seizure, burning the speaker 'like a desert prophet'. Trapped in a harsh, lifeless world & tormented by 'vulturous boredom', the speaker fights back, reclaiming control #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #122: You’re. A poem about a newborn. It captures the wonder, strangeness, & mystery of life—part alien, part miracle, loved. The child is 'wrapped up in yourself like a spool' & 'a clean slate, with your own face on', evoking a being full of promise #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #121: Mushrooms. This poem takes the metaphor of mushrooms growing silently & persistently overnight. They are 'meek', 'edible' & 'bland-mannered', yet they multiply, adapt & infiltrate. Though they appear docile, the mushrooms are gaining ground #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #120: The Burnt-out Spa. This poem takes the extended metaphor of a ruined structure overtaken by nature. Weeds find their way into its 'wood and rusty teeth'. A 'small dell' is described as consuming what once consumed it; the persistence of nature #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #119: Poem for a Birthday (7). In a city 'where men are mended', healing is mechanical, not human. The self becomes spare parts—'the storerooms are full of hearts'. Trauma is reassembled, not soothed; the body recovers, but the soul remains estranged #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #118: Private Ground. This poem explores themes of beauty, decay & isolation—'the escaped water / Threading back... to the pure / Platonic table' & fish that 'glitter like eyes' evoke a world where memory & mortality linger beneath nature’s surface #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #117: The Colossus. A haunting elegy of grief, memory & ruin: the speaker crawls 'like an ant in mourning' over the vast wreckage of a father who is 'pithy and historical as the Roman Forum'. Mythic yet broken, he remains unreachable #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #116: Polly’s Tree. A child’s imaginative inner world, rendered through dreamlike imagery. The tree, 'whole as a cobweb' & adorned with 'arc of tear-pearled / bleeding hearts', symbolises emotional fragility, creativity & the fleeting beauty of dreams #PlathADay #SylviaPlath

[Jonathon Zapasnik @jonozap]

Poem #115: Dark Wood, Dark Water. A forest where 'the late year / hammers her rare and / various metals' & 'hourglass sifts a / drift of goldpieces'. Nature’s alchemy unfolds in mist, moss & mirrored water—ancient, indifferent & quietly transformative #PlathADay #SylviaPlath