BROADCASTS.com

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written.\nTonight, Sylvia Plath's poem 'Cut'.

Cut\nFor Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill -\nMy thumb instead of an onion. \nThe top quite gone\nExcept for a sort of a hinge

Of skin,\nA flap like a hat, \nDead white.\nThen that red plush.

Little pilgrim,\nThe Indian's axed your scalp. \nYour turkey wattle\nCarpet rolls

Straight from the heart. \nI step on it,\nClutching my bottle\nOf pink fizz.

A celebration, this is. \nOut of a gap\nA million soldiers run, \nRedcoats, every one.

Whose side are they on? \n0 my\nHomunculus, I am ill.\nI have taken a pill to kill

The thin \nPapery feeling. \nSaboteur, \nKamikaze man

The stain on your \nGauze Ku Klux Klan\nBabushka\nDarkens and tarnishes and when

The balled\nPulp of your heart \nConfronts its small \nMill of silence

How you jump - \nTrepanned veteran, \nDirty girl,\nThumb stump.