Rating: 
Summary: Re: death
Review: "Dying
is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well."
If any poet has laid his or her soul bare for the world to see, it has been Sylvia Plath. In this cycle of verses, we see the poet's soul wander and cry and crumble. It's all very intense and often frightening, and if Plath were still alive her readers would be very, very worried about her mental health. As it is she worked right up until her death, and gave us a radiant first hand account of the descent.
Rating:
Summary: "The Voice of God": Sylvia Plath's Masterpiece
Review: "I am writing the best poems of my life... They will make my name." --Sylvia Plath, on the Ariel poemsIt is a pity that Sylvia Plath is so underestimated--most people I know have never heard of her, and those who have dismiss her as an angry feminist who committed suicide. It is a sacrilege to sum up her person so: Plath is one of the most important poets of our century, and Ariel her most important work. In it one can find the famous poems "Daddy", in which Plath shakes loose her restraints on her resentment for her father, who died when she was young: "At twenty I tried to die/ And get back, back, back to you... But they pulled me out of the sack / And they stuck me together with glue." ; "Lady Lazarus", a commentary of death and disappointment, which reflects her situation with terrible lyricism; and "Fever 103°", which, to me, is almost mocking; and "Ariel", after which the collection is named. Ariel is fascinating--her skill with words, her wit, her self-control (for she obviously reigns herself in from being too emotional, too confessional, and yet one feels the pain and torment all the same, perhaps even more sharply), her ability to find Just the Right Words, is vivid and brilliant. When I finished Ariel, I was left with a feeling of vulnerability, pain, and enlightenment, as though I had seen what I had been missing all along and felt the absence of self-delusion deeply. I have always been disturbed by the idea that Plath's creative energy seemed to stream from the destructive void that she felt inside of her soul and shared with the world, with skill and admirable lyricism... and yet I think that this is what made her such a *different*, unique poet. "Dying / Is an art, like everything else." She did it exceptionally well. -- K. Rivera
Rating:
Summary: Published as she Intended
Review: After Sylvia Plath's suicide, her last book, Ariel and Other Poems received critical acclaim and brought her worldwide fame. This new edition, forty years later returns more closely to her original thoughts on how the book would be.
The original edition was changed somewhat by her husband, Ted Hughes who removed some poems and added others to protect some people who might have been harmed by the nature of the poems, and to better reflect some of her later work that was not included in her original thoughts.
The new edition has a foreword by her daughter, Frieda Hughes who can better explain her father's actions and at the same time revert to the original thoughts of her mother. In addition, there is a facsimile of Plath's original Manuscript, complete with the editing notes she was making before she took her own life. Finally there is a series of versions of the title poem, Ariel, written in Plath's own hand showing how she developed a poem.
This book is a destined to become a classic, the definitive collection of Sylvia Plath's Ariel.
Rating:
Summary: An Insightful Depiction of a Human Condition
Review: Ariel is a collection of the last poems Sylvia Plath ever wrote. Furthermore, the poems were written during the last months of her life, which were very bleak months indeed. Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, had just left her for another woman, and she was left to watch over her two young children in the middle of a freezing cold winter in a small apartment that was not heated. Because of these circumstances, a lot of the poems included in "Ariel" are depressing; however, the poems are also strikingly beautiful. They show the human condition at its absolute lowest point: hopeless, stark, terrifying. Plath eventually ends her life by commiting suicide in a dramatic way: sticking her head in an oven and leaving it there. It was her third suicide attempt, and the other two were pretty dramatic as well. Plath addresses these suicide attempts, and how it felt to survive the other two, in one of her most famous poems from Ariel, "Lady Lazarus": "I have done it again./ One year in every ten/ I manage it-/ A sort of walking miracle/ my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade.../ And I a smiling woman/ am only thirty./ And like the cat I have nine times to die./ This is Number Three./ What a trash/ To annihilate each decade.../ Dying Is an art,/ like everything else/I do it exceptionally well./ Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware/ Beware./ Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair/ And I eat men like air." The Nazi theme continues in Plath's poem "Daddy", in which she accuses her father of being similar to Hitler, and compares her husband to her father as well, writing about how they both had negative influences in her life. "I have always been sacred of you,/ With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo./ And your neat mustache/ And your Aryan eye, bright blue./ Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You-/ Not God but a swastika/ So black no sky could squeak through./ Every woman adores a Fascist,/ The boot in the face, the brute/ Brute heart of a brute like you..../ I was ten when they buried you./ At twenty I tried to die/ And get back, back, back to you./ I thought even the bones would do./ But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue./ And then I knew what to do./ I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look/ And a love of the rack and the screw./ And I said I do, I do./ So daddy, I'm finally through./ If I've killed one man, I've killed two-/ The vampire who said he was you/ And drank my blood for a year,/ Seven years, if you want to know./ Daddy, you can lie back now." These are two of the most well-known examples of the bleakness but truthfulness in Plath's poetry. They reach toward the human emotions everyone knows- pain, sorrow, bitterness, lonliness. However, Plath also wrote some humourous and sweet poems which are included in Ariel, including poems about her children and good memories. These poems add a lightness to the book which is otherwise dark and dreary. Although the reader is tempted to hate a book filled with such depressing poetry, no one can resist loving it. This book is, in my opinion, one of the best poetry volumes of Twentieth Century American Literature, and it will find a place in your heart. If you have not read Ariel, I greatly recommend it. Through the autobiographical poems found within it you will connect with Plath's disillusionment and also come to know a great deal about the poetic genius' troubled life and last days.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Plath Prose
Review: As a fan of Sylvia Plath this book is monumental, in the development of her prose and in the timing. This book written shortly before her death, released her from the use of the thesaurus, she recognized that these were her masterpiece poems, this was her final blaze. I read through this book with a hunger, until I was done with the very last page, I couldn't help myself, I was in awe of every new passage. Afterwards it's depths weighed on me (and it still does), I wore the mask painted by words that had been manipulated by Sylvia for the reader to wear. Her words relayed so much more than the every day word, the way in which she strung her words together in this book, defied simple definition. You could actually feel the sensations wrap around you and strike deep into the pit of your stomach. Compared to her earlier works, this book is an epiphany. She had become so advanced that she lost the need for her previous elaborate stanzas. These prose are short, quick, sharp and exact. This is her Plath at her best. This is Plath with her heart, wide open.
Rating: 
Summary: don't get so excited
Review: as the publisher's weekly blurb states, these are not new poems, so don't get swept up in the "what plath fans have all been waiting for...". all of the poems shown here were published in the 1981 edition of Plath's Collected Poems by the devilish Ted Hughes.
So, why this edition? It's interesting to see someone's own manuscripts -- but interesting to whom? Plath fans. people mildly interested in Plath or new to her may feel a strain in deciding which version to read much like a confused customer i helped at a book store once displayed when I tried to explain that there are multiple versions of Leaves of Grass...
But which one should a reader new to Plath read? her version or Hughes's version? A purist (like me) would argue that her version is what to read. But someone interested in Ariel in an academic setting would be best served picking up the Hughes' version.
It is important for readers (academic or not) to realize that editors have often been the unseen geniuses (and villains) behind great works. I'm not calling Hughes a genius -- I'm just suggesting that perhaps both versions can teach us something about Plath -- regardless of our interest level.
Rating: 
Summary: As Plath Intended
Review: At last we can read Ariel the way Sylvia Plath it. This is now a fuller and more varied collection. Frieda Hughes's foreword is revealing and powerful. My only criticism (hence the docked star) is that fact that Plath's first collection 'The Collossus' is missing from the list of other works. Is it because the book was not published by Faber and Faber? Whatever the excuse, this is a grave mistake as we can learn a great deal about Plath's development toward what we now see as 'The Ariel Voice'. Still, I'm delighted to finally have the authentic Ariel in my personal library.
Rating: 
Summary: I've read better -- much better
Review: First off, I think in order to be fair, I should give a little background information on myself to validate my opinions.
I am a 16 yeard old white female. I attend an Art's School for students who are gifted in music, dance, theatre, creative writing, or visual arts. The students selected are interviewed for about 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the core area. The odds of getting ito the school are about 1 out of 450. I attend the school for creative writing and not only do I have to write an abundant amount of work, I must also study both contemporary and classic literature. No, I am not trying to flatter myself or brag, but I think this information is necessary in order to understand my viewpoints on Plath's work.
Also, like Plath, I have been committed to psychiatric hospitals and had to stay at one for 3 full years. Though I have never known Plath's diagnosis, it is probable that it is the same as mine: manic-depressive psychosis due to her severe depression, rage, and the amount of work she created right before her suicide.
Reading the following information, it would seem I would be a perfect, die-hard, Plath fan. But, alas, I am not.
Plath's work, in my opinion, is definitely not a work of "genius." Some of her poems come close, but are still lacking in their astonishment that so many describe. The poems that touch on the border of "genius" are "Elm" ("I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:/It is what you fear./I do not fear it: I have been there." and "I am terrified by this dark thing/That sleeps in me;/All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity."), "Widow" (Widow. The dead syllable, with its shadow/Of an echo, exposes the panel in the wall/Behind which the secret passages lies--stale air,/Fusty remembrances, the coiled-spring stair/That opens at the top onto nothing at all..../), "Poppies in July" ("Little poppies, little hell flames,/Do you do no harm?//You flicker. I cannot touch you./I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.//And it exhausts me to watch you/Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.//A mouth just bloodied."), "Crossing the Water" ("The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes./A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;//Stars open among the lilies./Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?/This is the silence of astounded souls."), "Lady Lazarus" ("Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well."), and a few other lines from some other poems that I don't think are worth mentioning at this point.
Plath became famous because of her "suffering artist" personality that she displayed. Yes, she did stay in London with her young children in a freezing winter where she wrote her "Ariel" poems, but she wasn't the only one, and I'm sure much others had it worse.
But, the most obvious reason she became famous was because of her suicide. This is why whiny, depressed, angst-ridden teenagers are drawn to Plath. They do not love her because of her dazzling poetry, but because she chose to kill her herself. Many teenagers, especially females, model themselves after Plath. They attempt suicide to live more "deeply" and write horrible Plath-like poetry that isn't even near the realm of Plath's work. They feel that Plath created this poetry just for them and that they are the only ones who truly understand how Plath felt, and no one else in the world (or their school) feels this way. They don't bother to understand the poetry. Instead they read it a few times, over analyze it, and decide that they also feel the same way and that they should also write poetry and attempt suicide.
Die-hard, teenage Plath fans also tend to be incredibly close minded to any other poetry, expect for Plath and other suicidal poets (i.e. Anne Sexton). These people are just ignorant and think that they are "TRULY" unique, and that their poetry should be published so others can know that they suffer.
I have had to read poetry by these types of people, and I tell you, they are very inadequate to the writing they CAN do, because many of them are very talented, but are narrow minded and only write about their so-called "sufferings." I can tell by their thought processes that they have talent, but refuse to expand into different realms of poetry.
Of course, when you write about suffering, it isn't always pathetic. Just don't make it the topic of your whole book of poetry. There is more to life then death.
And, not just teenage Plath fans, but teenagers who write poetry in general usually don't edit and rewrite their work because they feel as though it takes the "soul" out of their work. They want to leave it "raw" and "unpolished." They want people to feel what they were feeling in that exact moment. And this is why much of their poetry horrible: they don't believe in editing their work.
Plath did edit her work. She was considered a professional. While standing in the bookstore and reading this book (I did not bother to purchase it) I read her original manuscripts. Obviously, the published ones were better. The most disappointing thing about this volume was that they only provided a few of her original manuscripts. What they should've done (or should do) instead is make a whole book dedicated to her original manuscripts so others can see her creative process and the value of editing and rewriting. Put the manuscripts first, and then the final poem. I think this would make out for a nice book....it might be worth $25.
Those who feel that this book is worth the money are either the die-hard Plath fans, or educators of some sort, who for some bizarre reason need to purchase this book.
Overall, I'm not a fan of Plath, so I cannot give a good rating to this book. The Collected Poems I would give 3 stars, only because you can see how much she progressed (for the better) in her poetry and it includes her all her published (and some previously unpublished) works.
If you want to read good poetry, I suggest Emily Dickinson, or, if you want to stick to more contemporary poetry, Louise Gluck ("The Wild Iris" won a Pulitzer), or find some good translations for Rainer Maria Rilke, Anna Akhmatova, and Marina Tseteyeva. Plath just doesn't live up to the hype. If you suffer for your art, at least make sure it's "good" art.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking throughout the years
Review: How different it was almost two decades ago to be an exceptional talent isolated in a foreign country, separated from the literary and academic communities in which you thrived by virtue of motherhood, marooned by tight budgets, no car, bad weather in a suffocating island without peers to appreciate your accomplishments, while attempting to do the best for the children you adored. It's heartbreaking to think that when this remarkable volume by an incredible talent was first published, the author was criticized for the anger, longing, loneliness and guilt expressed in her poems. They were acknowledged more for their craft than the validity of the emotions they expressed. It's a clichee by now to bemoan how different Plath's life would be with the inroads of feminism and availibility of antidepressents in the '90s. But it's important to see how this unique voice can give incredible meaning to concerns that echo throughout the ages. This wonderful volume of groundbreaking poetry is a must for any bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Complex genius, not emotional blatherings
Review: How typical. A race of men classifying Plath's genius as enhanced symptoms of PMS. Is it that hard to believe that a woman could give birth to poems so incredibly rich and textured purely because she is mentally capable to do so? Of course not. Therefore, why pigeon-hole Plath as an over-emotional woman, who, rather than Windexing and cooking her troubles away, chose to compose some of the most heralded lyrics of the twentieth century? It's difficult to excuse the Ariel poems as the simple mind-barf of a harried, lonely woman. Sylvia Plath was a genius. Period.
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