The January 7, 1957, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter, a dead-ringer for Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes
“Channel Crossing” was one of Plath’s first poems to turn away from the “small, coy love lyric” toward the “larger, social world of other people” (LH, 222). At first glance, “Channel Crossing” seems to be about her miserable trip, post-honeymoon, by water across the English Channel (CP, 26). This explanation is assumed because the end of August 1956 brought “vomiting misery in a black blow night”[1] for Plath and Hughes on their trip over the English Channel back home. Plath’s pocket calendar also reveals that she had had a “green rough boat crossing” on January 9, 1956, returning from France after a holiday with Sassoon. In her Letters Home, Plath wrote that her poem “Channel Crossing” was finished on February 23, 1956, two days prior to her even meeting her future husband, Ted Hughes. In her pocket calendar, she called “Channel Crossing” her “Best poem yet,” and with good reason.[2] “Channel Crossing” perfectly addresses Hungary’s uprising and revolution against Soviet leadership that took place that February. Plath had known Hungarians, had dated a young Hungarian as a teen and another again at twenty, and appears to have been very interested in the region as it was so close to Poland and her father’s homeland. In “Channel Crossing,” Plath playfully hints at her meaning with phrases such as the “hungry seas” and she uses Soviet jargon such as “comrades.” One might also take the title to mean mixed radio signals and spies, and the “waves” to be radio waves. Moreover, the poem is full of war imagery. Plath understands that the world is “beyond, the neutral view” and the military forces are “rank on rank” and “advancing.” Her words “we freeze” and “casual blasts of ice” reflect the Cold War. Ending Plath’s third stanza of “Channel Crossing” is a reference to the Old Testament story from the Book of Genesis, where Jacob wrestles the angel, insisting that it tell him his name, or in other interpretations, Jacob says: “I will not go until you bless me.” Many great artists whose work Plath would have known have portrayed this story in painting, including Rembrandt, Delacroix, and Gauguin. The country of Hungary in 1956, with its boundaries and governance ever-changing, was certainly wrestling with the angels to learn who they were. Sylvia Plath believed that she had premonitions. This is documented in her journals, where she wrote of dreams that came true, or close to true, around publications and winning awards (LH, 417). In the 1956 notes for The Collected Poems, Hughes wrote: “SP frequently mentioned flashes of prescience—always about something unimportant” (CP, 287). Hughes also said of Plath: “Her psychic gifts, at almost any time, were strong enough to make her frequently wish to be rid of them” (Alvarez, 204). Hughes has stated that through art he too had this ability. He believed that his stories “Snow,” “The Suitor” and “The Wound” were all prophecies of his own life (LTH, 643). Might Plath’s “Channel Crossing” have been a prophecy of what was to come, not even realized by Plath in her lifetime? Four months after Plath wrote “Channel Crossing,” in June 1956, a violent uprising by Polish workers in Otto Plath’s home city of Poznan was put down by the government, with scores of protesters killed and wounded. There was a great upset, and concessions were made with the Poles and neighboring Hungary. Sylvia Plath and the world were watching. Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” was the unnamed Hungarian Freedom Fighter, and Plath kept up on all the newspapers and magazines, many of which greatly disturbed her. Hughes was asked at one point to join the effort and fight for the Hungarians (he declined).[3] Plath most likely noticed that the unnamed Freedom Fighter on this cover of Time Magazine greatly resembled her husband in appearance. The Warsaw Pact (“To keep some unsaid pact”) had bound Hungary to the Soviet Union, but the country sought instead to be neutral (Plath’s “the neutral view”), as was Austria. Twenty-thousand Hungarian student protesters had a violent clash, rioting against officials (“this rare rumpus which no man can control”) as they tore down a statue of Stalin, set police cars on fire, and cut holes in flags removing the communist coat of arms (“Ransacked in the public eye”). Even more fascinating is that at the December 6, 1956, Melbourne Olympics, the infamous “Blood in the Water Match” took place, where a Soviet water polo player hit a Hungarian competitor in the eye, resulting in blood gushing into the water. This gives new meaning to the second stanza’s “wallop, assaulting” and “Retching in bright orange basins” “under the strict mask of his agony.” Enough had already happened on the date of Plath’s February writing to get a sense of where this political upheaval was leading. Yet the premonitory detail in this poem is uncanny. Famous photograph of Hungarian water polo player Ervin Zador, after being punched by a Soviet player. [1] An unpublished entry in Sylvia Plath’s 1956 pocket calendar dated August 29, 1956. This calendar may be found at the Sylvia Plath Archives in the Lilly Library, Indiana University-Bloomington. [2] An unpublished entry in Sylvia Plath’s 1956 pocket calendar dated February 23, 1956. This calendar may be found at the Sylvia Plath Archives in the Lilly Library, Indiana University-Bloomington. [3] From a letter from Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Plath, dated November 6, 1956. (LSP: Vol. 2, 9) BLOOD IN THE WATER MATCH, CHANNEL CROSSING, ENGLISH CHANNEL, FREEDOM FIGHTER, HUNGARIAN, HUNGARIAN FREEDOM FIGHTER, HUNGARY, HUNGERIAN WATER POLO PLAYER, JACOB WRESTLING THE ANGEL, MELBOURNE OLYMPICS, MILITARY, OTTO PLATH, PLATH POEM, PREMONITION, PRESCIENCE, PSYCHIC, SOVIET UNION, SYLVIA PLATH, THE WARSAW PACT, TIME MAGAZINE
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