Book description
This comprehensive volume contains all Sylvia Plath's mature poetry written from 1956 up to her death in 1963. The poems are drawn from the only collection Plath published while alive, The Colossus, as well as from posthumous collections Ariel, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees.
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Why read it?
2 authors picked The Collected Poems as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Sylvia Plath created an important body of poetry although she committed suicide at age 30.
After hearing about her work in the 1970s, I looked for her books and read all of them before The Collected Poems came out in 1981. Her images were indeed amazing, and they made me look at the world more closely: “The pears fatten like little buddhas. / A blue mist is dragging the lake.”
Even more importantly, she wrote honestly about undesirable mental states like depression: “People or stars / Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.” I admired her willingness to share her sorrow,…
From Lucille's list on Lucille Lang Day's favorite poetry books for discovering your place in the universe.
As the years pass it seems to me that Sylvia Plath is not just one of the notable poets of the second half of the twentieth century but the stand-out voice after whom everyone had to refer back to her. Her death by suicide still stirs the imagination; her poems are a kind of controlled scream showing her wrestling with an intolerable mental condition.
From Jad's list on The best books about how women rock the world.
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