Fittingly, Plath’s poems model the practice. In “Lady Lazarus,” Ariel (1965), she hammers small words—ash, red, rise—into resurrection: “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair.” In “Ariel,” the ride condenses into arrow, red, eye, drive—short syllables tightened into velocity. Even “Cut” shocks with monosyllables—thumb, skin, flap—making the body’s jolt immediate. These are not ornaments but levers; they shift the self. Following her cue, we choose words that wake and then consent to be carried by them—until, almost unnoticed, they carry us into the life they name. [...]
