Sylvia Plath

The Collected Poems (Harper Colophon Books)

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. The text is preceded by an introduction by Ted Hughes and followed by notes and comments on individual poems. There is also an appendix containing fifty poems from Sylvia Plath's juvenilia. This collection was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. 'For me, the most important literary event of 1981 has been the publication, eighteen years after her death, of Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, confirming her as one of the most powerful and lavishly gifted poets of our time.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

Collected Poems

Gavin

The first raw confessional poet? Which is to say the first very-modern-poet, mother of 100,000 epigones, confessing when we've done nothing in particular worth admitting or renouncing.

Actually, have any metal bands covered Plath?

Caitlin Berger

Man oh man, if I could give this Collection 6 stars, I would. By reading Sylvia Plath's entire collection of poems, you can fully understand why she made such an impact on this world. I bookmarked so many pages, not wanting to ever forget some of these poems. Almost all of them, really. I just kept repeating, after finishing each poem, "Beautiful. Just beautiful." It's really my first time reading a whole poetry book, and I cannot wait to read more.

I loved seeing the evolution of her poetry through the years (1956-1963). I think, personally, I prefer the years 1956 and 1963. They were both years in which her poems were incredibly raw and personal and you could tell this woman was deep and had been through a lot. The first poem that really stood out to me was Tale of a Tub. But truthfully, practically each poem in this Collection grabbed my heart and really changed me. It sounds sappy, but honestly, Sylvia Plath will do that too (along with The Bell Jar).

I noticed quite a few themes in her poems. She brought up the sea, and sailors or ships a lot. Her metaphors are spectacular. She obviously went through depression and a bit of madness, maybe, during her life. She did live in a psychiatric ward for some time, which inspired The Bell Jar, and you can tell some of her poems allude to that time, or the theme of madness. She also wrote quite a few poems about her father, who died (I presume) a while before she wrote these poems. Clearly, she loved him, but it is known he was a Nazi, and some of her poems talk about that and the Holocaust. The one that sticks out the most is Daddy; it's really powerful. Another big theme I saw in this Collection is children; the innocence of children, how children affect parents, etc. I believe she had at least two children of her own. Otherwise she also spoke about suicide, about death, about feeling judged by others. 

What I just simply enjoyed about these poems is how personal they were and how much experience she put into them. Even her collection of poems before 1956 were mature and deep. Sylvia Plath explored so many issues and themes that touched her and that we should take notice of. I will list my favorite poems here:

1956: Tale of a Tub; Channel Crossing; Street Song; Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest; Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper; The Shrike; Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats; November Graveyard; Black Rook in Rainy Weather.

1957: The Thin People; The Other Two; The Disquieting Muses.

1958: Virgin in a Tree; Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering; A Winter's Tale; The Ghost's Leavetaking; Sculptor; Full Fathom Five.

1959: A Winter Ship; Two Views of a Cadaver Room; Electra on Azalea Path; Old Ladies' Home; The Colossus; Poem for a Birthday (numbers 4, 5, 6, 7).

1960: Stillborn; On Deck; Leaving Early; Magi; Candles; A Life.

1961: Heavy Women; In Plaster; Tulips; Widow; The Surgeon at 2 a.m.; The Babysitters.

1962: Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices; Elm; Burning the Letters; For a Fatherless Son; A Birthday Present; The Detective; The Courage of Shutting-Up; A Secret; Daddy; The Jailer; Lesbos; The Tour; Ariel; Lady Lazarus; Gulliver; Letter in November; Death & Co.; The Fearful; Mary's Song; Childless Woman; Eavesdropper.

1963: Sheep in Fog; The Munich Mannequins; Totem; Paralytic; Mystic; Kindness; Edge.

1963 was the last month and a half of her life, and her last poems just held something special for me.

Juvenilia poems I enjoyed:

April 18; Dirge for a Joker; Cinderella; Sonnet: To Eva; Metamorphoses of the Moon; Dialogue En Route; To a Jilted Lover; Trio of Love Songs; Lament; Doom of Exiles; The Dead; Danse Macabre; Song for a Revolutionary Love; Sonnet to Satan; On Looking into the Eyes of a Demon Lover; Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light; Love is a Parallax; Morning in the Hospital Solarium; Epitaph in Three Parts.

I love Sylvia Plath. <3

Kris 

anjali

andrea valentina 

lamia 

Brings together a collection of all Plath's mature poetry, published and unpublished, together with a large selection of her juvenile works

The Collected Poems (Harper Colophon Books)

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