Sylvia Plath - Collected Poems

[ktfrank04]

Are there any other Plath lovers out there?!
There are obviously fans of "The Bell Jar", but I haven't met many people who have read her poetry.

I bought her "Collected Poems" earlier this year. I am only 1/3 through it but already have a few favorites.

one of my favorite excerpts from Plath:

from "Spinster"

"And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either."

comment with your favorite Sylvia Plath poem or excerpt !

-- 03 Sep 2014, 10:25 --

Here's another, a complete poem from the collection:

"Winter Landscape, with Rooks"

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?
-Plath (1956)

[Elizabeth Rogers 47]

Her writing is beautiful, but depressing. Life is depressing enough. It's too bad no one in her life recognized then that depression is an illness that can be treated other than with drugs. I look at her work occasionally, because she truly was an incredible talent! But never if I am feeling down myself.

[ktfrank04]

Her writing is beautiful, but depressing. Life is depressing enough. It's too bad no one in her life recognized then that depression is an illness that can be treated other than with drugs. I look at her work occasionally, because she truly was an incredible talent! But never if I am feeling down myself.

that makes sense! I understand that ((: her writing definitely is not for everyone. I guess I am just one of those people who enjoys depressing writing vs. the optimistic stuff because it is more realistic to me. I don't enjoy reading pieces that are sugar coated. Give it to me tough because that is how life is.