Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very
 Whitely, discreetly,
 Very quietly

, Our toes, our noses
, Take hold on the loam,
 Acquire the air.

 Nobody sees us, 
Stops us, betrays us; 
The small grains make room.

 Soft fists insist on
 Heaving the needles,
 The leafy bedding,

 Even the paving.
 Our hammers, our rams, 
Earless and eyeless,

 Perfectly voiceless,
 Widen the crannies,
 Shoulder through holes. We 

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking 

Little or nothing.
 So many of us! 
So many of us! 

We are shelves, we are
 Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

 Nudgers and shovers
 In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

 We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
 Our foot’s in the door.

Thematic Connections
The Friday that Everything Changed and Mushrooms are similar to each other in the way of feelings of insecurity and worthlessness. In Mushrooms, one segment that really stood out to me was: “Soft fists insist on, Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding.” Sylvia Plath was almost describing how worthless she was, as evidenced by the lines: “Diet on water,” and “We are meek, we are edible.” She was more so focussing on all of the oppressed people, and not just women. In the Friday that everything changed, Joyce was trying to express how unfair it was that the boys always got the water bucket privilege… That is until Alma took a stand. I can see a clear theme connection between the two, due to the fact that certain characters were feeling degraded, left out… Segregated, if you will.

mushrooms poem

• mushrooms