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Summary: A not to be missed collection of this great poet.
Review: Sylvia Plath's poetry ranges from exuberant to searingly painful. Ted Hughes, her husband and one of formost poets and critics in the English language, has done a masterful job in designing this collection and adding editorial explications. Sylvia Plath's poetry has been, at times, usurped by feminist ideologues for purposes it was not intended for. It stands in it's own right, though, as the primarily autobiographical story of a young woman's struggles and triumphs, written with clarity and brilliance. Plath is one of the formost American poets of the century, and regardless of what some fuddy duddy over intellectualized critics might say of her work, it is a joy and often a sorrow to read.
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Summary: Overall, Plath is an amazing Poet
Review: The book is very complete, and shows the incredable amount of tallent that Plath possessed.
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Summary: Out of the ash
Review: The Collected Poems is fantastic. Plath's distinctive strong poetic voice allows the reader to have a special insight into the pain and anguish that she suffered with throughout her short life. Since her poetry is often autobiographical, anyone who wants to gain a deeper appreciation for Plath would benefit from reading her novel The Bell Jar, and learning a little more about this groundbreaking poet and authoress.
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Summary: Plath is great!!
Review: The largely autobrioghical work of Plath is a major literary addition the canon of female, New England and American poetic traditions. She is truly one of the great American poets of this century, regardless what over intellectualized critics might find to fuss about. It's unfortunate that her work has been somewhat kidnapped by feminist ideologues, who have used it to promote a political agenda it was never intended for. Primary tactic among this is the demonization of Ted Hughes, her husband and poet laureate of Britain (he died recently of cancer), whose brilliant body of work in poetry, children's books, translations of classics and social & literary commentary might be unmatched by any writer in English this century. Plath's beautiful, poignant sometimes searing poetry stands tall in it's own write, well above the political affectations lesser readers might want to put on it.
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Summary: the best of the confessionalists
Review: there isn't much i can say about sylvia plath that hasn't already been said. this is a wonderful collection of poems by one of the greatest contemporary female poets. the later works are her best (1962-3), and it was nice to have seen some of her juvenalia. a must for a poetry lover
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Summary: The 'brat' theory it is then!
Review: This book is a thorough collection of Sylvia Plath's poetry, somewhat smudgily printed on cheap paper. Well, we've got the quantity, so lets not complain about that.Not surprisingly, at her young age, Silvia Plath was unintegrated as a person - it shows in her work - a set of extremes that were not resolved during her lifetime. (Let's hope for her sake that Buddhism depicts the afterlife and not Jehovah.) Her horoscope shows some of these components: Pisces rising, her sensitive, poetic self; a mistress of language, a great impressionist and feeler; her Virgo planets a talent for reflective analysis. But at her Scorpionic centre ... excess, craziness, unmanageable emotions, vengefulness, jealousy, rancor and so on (and so on). And let us not forget her epoch where marriage seemed the sole option to forge ahead with relationship. Her relationship with her father, then dead and hence unapproachable, was trapped inside memories riddled with love/hate, resentment. A model Electra? Certainly, she was a bundle of nerves with unfulfilled demands about him. Despite her talents and wonderful abounding energy, she was also a very underdeveloped woman whose analysis (Freudian) had done little to evolve. And the desperate cop out from evolution shows her failure: the failure to persevere with life so she could live the opportunity to evolve as a mature person later on. Her ridiculous, melodramatic gesture, suicide, of course put paid to any further development. The fact that she had enormous talent, success and emerging fame - two children - emphasises the supreme folly of that act. I dread to think what the consequences could be in an after-life. Probably endless remorse. Do we like Sylvia Plath? Are we impressed with her in any way? 'Lady Lazarus' is great reading, 'Daddy' too. But if you were to meet her, there would surely be conflict; her usual emotionalism, competitive insecurity, ruthlessness. But at the same time, a colloquium, probably. Her work? I find a lot of her writing too obscure to have a recoverable meaning. Even when I tease out a possible significance, it is to little avail. Too many inappropriate uses of the words 'blood', 'owl', 'hooves' and 'moon'. (She hates the moon and sees it as malefic in most aspects.) Some of the language is inept and inelegant to say the least. Other poems are terrific (I won't say brilliant) in their evocativeness of certain lurid, gloomy states of mind which every reader will recognise as their worst selves raging against misfortune. Perhaps Sylvia Plath is more significant as a person (not as a poet). Her emotionalism has caught the imagination of subsequent generations; she has been appointed as an icon for political purposes in our own epoch. She represents all the romance of a consciousness struggling to find itself -- the glamour of self-immolation and martyrdom, our own modern equivalent of the excesses of romanticism. But even so, I like her. O yes. She was a gale-force wind that raged through the lives of those who knew her; an awakener, of that there is no doubt; a storm within her time that has not settled yet!
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Summary: Heartbreaking glimpse into the life & death of Plath.
Review: This book is my favorite, and I purchased a first edition through Amazon auctions after checking it out of the library several years ago when I was a high school junior. It offers us the opportunity to try to get to know a gifted, tortured woman we will never see or speak to, but many can understand. Poems like "Edge" the last one she wrote, show us what made her live, and eventually choose to end her own life. I recommend this to all who are ready to see and feel the dark side.
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Summary: Collection details Plath's formidable talent.
Review: This book is the most complete collection of Sylvia Plath's poetry assembled in one volume. It is for this reason that it belongs almost as required reading, not just in American english programs, but in secondary schools everywhere. It's value lies in it's progression of a female poet and her journey towards finding her true voice. We see the early poems, methodically and skillfully written, shedding style after style of obvious influences through excercises of observation and perserverance. Through these verses, she explores and develops an intricate mythology; by the end, however, she has not lost us in her private world of symbolism and imagery, but enthralls us, heartbreakingly, through the mastery of her words. These last poems, that made up her final manuscript, are undisputedly some of the most moving and beautifully executed compositions of this past century. It is a wonderful book, one that forever changes the way the reader interprets art and the world around him that inspires it.
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Summary: Collected Poems Reissue
Review: This collection contains 224 poems, including a selection of her very earliest work. Also use: Crossing the River (1971), a volume that contains the poet's last works.
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Summary: A must have for Plath fans
Review: This collection of poems by one of the most prominent and most talented poets of the US is a must have for any bookshelf. Arranged by date written, you can explore Plath's change from her early work to her later work. She matures but also is more free and honest in her later writing. She is one of those people that everyone should read. The word brilliant doesn't do her justice. She keeps me fascinated and every once in awhile when I need a Plath fix, I just pick up my book of poems and read "Lady Lazarus" or "Daddy." She is nothing short of riveting.
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