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The Colossus: and Other Poems
With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, which was first published in 1960, Sylvia Plath burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.
101 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1960
589 people are currently reading
26.8k people want to read
About the author
Sylvia Plath
261books26.8kfollowersSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the most influential and emotionally powerful authors of the 20th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she demonstrated literary talent from an early age, publishing her first poem at the age of eight. Her early life was shaped by the death of her father, Otto Plath, when she was eight years old, a trauma that would profoundly influence her later work.
Plath attended Smith College, where she excelled academically but also struggled privately with depression. In 1953, she survived a suicide attempt, an experience she later fictionalized in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. After recovering, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, in England. While there, she met and married English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. Their relationship was passionate but tumultuous, with tensions exacerbated by personal differences and Hughes's infidelities.
Throughout her life, Plath sought to balance her ambitions as a writer with the demands of marriage and motherhood. She had two children with Hughes, Frieda and Nicholas, and continued to write prolifically. In 1960, her first poetry collection, The Colossus and Other Poems, was published in the United Kingdom. Although it received modest critical attention at the time, it laid the foundation for her distinctive voice—intensely personal, often exploring themes of death, rebirth, and female identity.
Plath's marriage unraveled in 1962, leading to a period of intense emotional turmoil but also extraordinary creative output. Living with her two children in London, she wrote many of the poems that would posthumously form Ariel, the collection that would cement her literary legacy. These works, filled with striking imagery and raw emotional force, displayed her ability to turn personal suffering into powerful art. Poems like "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" remain among her most famous, celebrated for their fierce honesty and technical brilliance.
In early 1963, following a deepening depression, Plath died by suicide at the age of 30. Her death shocked the literary world and sparked a lasting fascination with her life and work. The posthumous publication of Ariel in 1965, edited by Hughes, introduced Plath's later poetry to a wide audience and established her as a major figure in modern literature. Her novel The Bell Jar was also published under her own name shortly after her death, having initially appeared under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas."
Plath’s work is often classified within the genre of confessional poetry, a style that emphasizes personal and psychological experiences. Her fearless exploration of themes like mental illness, female oppression, and death has resonated with generations of readers and scholars. Over time, Plath has become a feminist icon, though her legacy is complex and occasionally controversial, especially in light of debates over Hughes's role in managing her literary estate and personal history.
Today, Sylvia Plath is remembered not only for her tragic personal story but also for her immense contributions to American and English literature. Her work continues to inspire writers, artists, and readers worldwide. Collections such as Ariel, Crossing the Water, and Winter Trees, as well as her journals and letters, offer deep insight into her creative mind. Sylvia Plath’s voice, marked by its intensity and emotional clarity, remains one of the most haunting and enduring in modern literature.
Plath attended Smith College, where she excelled academically but also struggled privately with depression. In 1953, she survived a suicide attempt, an experience she later fictionalized in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. After recovering, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, in England. While there, she met and married English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. Their relationship was passionate but tumultuous, with tensions exacerbated by personal differences and Hughes's infidelities.
Throughout her life, Plath sought to balance her ambitions as a writer with the demands of marriage and motherhood. She had two children with Hughes, Frieda and Nicholas, and continued to write prolifically. In 1960, her first poetry collection, The Colossus and Other Poems, was published in the United Kingdom. Although it received modest critical attention at the time, it laid the foundation for her distinctive voice—intensely personal, often exploring themes of death, rebirth, and female identity.
Plath's marriage unraveled in 1962, leading to a period of intense emotional turmoil but also extraordinary creative output. Living with her two children in London, she wrote many of the poems that would posthumously form Ariel, the collection that would cement her literary legacy. These works, filled with striking imagery and raw emotional force, displayed her ability to turn personal suffering into powerful art. Poems like "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" remain among her most famous, celebrated for their fierce honesty and technical brilliance.
In early 1963, following a deepening depression, Plath died by suicide at the age of 30. Her death shocked the literary world and sparked a lasting fascination with her life and work. The posthumous publication of Ariel in 1965, edited by Hughes, introduced Plath's later poetry to a wide audience and established her as a major figure in modern literature. Her novel The Bell Jar was also published under her own name shortly after her death, having initially appeared under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas."
Plath’s work is often classified within the genre of confessional poetry, a style that emphasizes personal and psychological experiences. Her fearless exploration of themes like mental illness, female oppression, and death has resonated with generations of readers and scholars. Over time, Plath has become a feminist icon, though her legacy is complex and occasionally controversial, especially in light of debates over Hughes's role in managing her literary estate and personal history.
Today, Sylvia Plath is remembered not only for her tragic personal story but also for her immense contributions to American and English literature. Her work continues to inspire writers, artists, and readers worldwide. Collections such as Ariel, Crossing the Water, and Winter Trees, as well as her journals and letters, offer deep insight into her creative mind. Sylvia Plath’s voice, marked by its intensity and emotional clarity, remains one of the most haunting and enduring in modern literature.
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July 9, 2024
The Colossus is the coldest collection of summer poetry you will ever read. I’m certain this paradox was intentional. Moles, maggots, cadavers, suicides, dead snakes, dead things in the surf, dead things on the shore, dead things out in the water, etc. There were times I was bit numbed out by all that dead stuff. For the first third of the collection, I initially felt the influence of Robert Lowell to be obvious in some of the poems (“Point Shirley,� “Hardcastle Crags�). Now I’m not so sure. Yes, Plath studied under Lowell, and I know as a result I’m connecting dots with the seashore linking the two. But Plath takes the seashore poems into her own dark places, again and again, so that by the time you reach the late “Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbor,� you yourself (to your horror) are fingering the nasty things on the beach:
On the back of the river’s
Backtracking tail. I’d come for
Free fish-bait: the blue mussels
Clumped like bulbs at the grass-
root.
Margin of the tidal pools.
Dawn tide stood dead low. I smelt
Mud stench, shell guts, gulls�
leavings;
This is a very disturbing poem, and one that draws on Queen Gertrude’s “long purples� speech regarding Ophelia’s fate (Act IV, sc. 7). After the rot and watery decay, Plath tries to pull an Eliot, meditating on the skull beneath the skin:
The crab face, etched and set there,
Grimaced as skulls grimace; it
Had an Oriental look,
A samurai death mask done
On a tiger’s tooth, less for
Art’s sake than God’s.
I’m not sure I believe her here. “God� is not a word you encounter often with Plath. Eliot had the comfort of his belief. Plath’s interest is more on the level of one attending � quite willingly � an autopsy.
And she knows you won’t believe her, as she returns you to the death process in the here and now:
And whole crabs, dead, their soggy
Bellies pallid and upturned,
Perform their shambling waltzes
On the waves� dissolving turn
And return, losing themselves
Bit by bit to their friendly
Element �
I suppose I could go on about several other poems, but I see no need. Her theme is apparent in every poem. By collection’s end, you can’t help but admire her uncompromising, but grim, focus. When it comes to Plath, believe the hype.
On the back of the river’s
Backtracking tail. I’d come for
Free fish-bait: the blue mussels
Clumped like bulbs at the grass-
root.
Margin of the tidal pools.
Dawn tide stood dead low. I smelt
Mud stench, shell guts, gulls�
leavings;
This is a very disturbing poem, and one that draws on Queen Gertrude’s “long purples� speech regarding Ophelia’s fate (Act IV, sc. 7). After the rot and watery decay, Plath tries to pull an Eliot, meditating on the skull beneath the skin:
The crab face, etched and set there,
Grimaced as skulls grimace; it
Had an Oriental look,
A samurai death mask done
On a tiger’s tooth, less for
Art’s sake than God’s.
I’m not sure I believe her here. “God� is not a word you encounter often with Plath. Eliot had the comfort of his belief. Plath’s interest is more on the level of one attending � quite willingly � an autopsy.
And she knows you won’t believe her, as she returns you to the death process in the here and now:
And whole crabs, dead, their soggy
Bellies pallid and upturned,
Perform their shambling waltzes
On the waves� dissolving turn
And return, losing themselves
Bit by bit to their friendly
Element �
I suppose I could go on about several other poems, but I see no need. Her theme is apparent in every poem. By collection’s end, you can’t help but admire her uncompromising, but grim, focus. When it comes to Plath, believe the hype.
May 2, 2012
Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to read The Colossus all at once. It's had, it's had an, it's made me. . . I'm sorry, I have to sit down and start again.
Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to read The Colossus all at once. The poems are too rich, too sensual and filling. It was like trying to eat a plateful of prime rib, that's been covered in dark chocolate and deep fried. Delicious, but.
And all the hard words! I don't mean hard like palustral is hard, as in hard to understand because I'd never before made an acquaintanceship with the word. No, I mean hard like how a seed or a nut can be hard. Hard on the teeth, hard on the gums and tongue, hard on the throat, the gullet and, I'm sorry to say, the bowels. Words that stick and clog and glutinate inside you; well, inside me, at least. And word pairs as hard and as beautiful as (but much more plentiful than) sapphires. Here are a few from her poem, Sow:
shrewd secret, pig show, public stare, sunk sty, penny slot, thrifty children, prime flesh, golden crackling, parsley halo, maunching thistle, snout-cruise, feat-foot, belly-bedded, bloat tun, dream-filmed, grisly-bristled, jocular fist, barrel nape, pig hove, lean Lent, earthquaking continent, and (my favorite) brobdingnag bulk.
Plath's book is full of such morsals. (I'll let you find the rest.) I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but I think she must be the poetic cousin (or test tube spawn) of and . And she died early like they did, though she by her own heavy hand. I guess I might consider offing myself if I had all of that shard-sharp genius hammering all the time at my tender cerebellum.
Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to read The Colossus all at once. The poems are too rich, too sensual and filling. It was like trying to eat a plateful of prime rib, that's been covered in dark chocolate and deep fried. Delicious, but.
And all the hard words! I don't mean hard like palustral is hard, as in hard to understand because I'd never before made an acquaintanceship with the word. No, I mean hard like how a seed or a nut can be hard. Hard on the teeth, hard on the gums and tongue, hard on the throat, the gullet and, I'm sorry to say, the bowels. Words that stick and clog and glutinate inside you; well, inside me, at least. And word pairs as hard and as beautiful as (but much more plentiful than) sapphires. Here are a few from her poem, Sow:
shrewd secret, pig show, public stare, sunk sty, penny slot, thrifty children, prime flesh, golden crackling, parsley halo, maunching thistle, snout-cruise, feat-foot, belly-bedded, bloat tun, dream-filmed, grisly-bristled, jocular fist, barrel nape, pig hove, lean Lent, earthquaking continent, and (my favorite) brobdingnag bulk.
Plath's book is full of such morsals. (I'll let you find the rest.) I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but I think she must be the poetic cousin (or test tube spawn) of and . And she died early like they did, though she by her own heavy hand. I guess I might consider offing myself if I had all of that shard-sharp genius hammering all the time at my tender cerebellum.
August 6, 2016
Sylvia Plath has done to me twice in the last 48 hours what not many other writers has ever done before, that being keeping me up into the early hours. Having read the stunning collection of poetry in "Ariel" this was another body of work which shows off her masterful talent and already I crave for more. Troubled genius?, tortured soul?, probably true, but that doesn't bother me, just the greatness of whenever she put pen to paper.
October 17, 2024
A dark bundle which heavily features nature, death and decay. Some poems where quite labyrinthine and hard to understand for me, even though the talent of Plath definitely shines through
What I want back is what I was - The Eye-Mote
This debut bundle of was a harder read to get into than Ariel. I only could take 10-15 pages to me every day, filled with poems that are quite dark.
Death, decay and dissection come back in the first poems in , even though the settings Plath uses are suburban, seemingly ordinary America
Nature, both domesticated in the form of pigs and horses, and wild in forests, fields, rooks, snakes, dead moles and owls, feature as well. Watercolour of Grantchester Meadows comments on this dichotomy explicitly.
Metaphors, despite the overall tone of the bundle being quite dark/cold, is playful, while still conveying a sense of doom:
I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.
Some poems convey dark menace more directly:
All obscurity
Starts with a danger:
Your dangers are many.
Full Fathom Five
The Disquieting Muses is an quite touching ode to her mother, while Poem for a Birthday, the longest piece that closes of the bundle has multiple themes and memorable sentences: (Once I was ordinary but also This is not death, it is something safer).
As the bundle, this poem features lush if slightly terrifying descriptions of gardens and allusions to mothers.
What I want back is what I was - The Eye-Mote
This debut bundle of was a harder read to get into than Ariel. I only could take 10-15 pages to me every day, filled with poems that are quite dark.
Death, decay and dissection come back in the first poems in , even though the settings Plath uses are suburban, seemingly ordinary America
Nature, both domesticated in the form of pigs and horses, and wild in forests, fields, rooks, snakes, dead moles and owls, feature as well. Watercolour of Grantchester Meadows comments on this dichotomy explicitly.
Metaphors, despite the overall tone of the bundle being quite dark/cold, is playful, while still conveying a sense of doom:
I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.
Some poems convey dark menace more directly:
All obscurity
Starts with a danger:
Your dangers are many.
Full Fathom Five
The Disquieting Muses is an quite touching ode to her mother, while Poem for a Birthday, the longest piece that closes of the bundle has multiple themes and memorable sentences: (Once I was ordinary but also This is not death, it is something safer).
As the bundle, this poem features lush if slightly terrifying descriptions of gardens and allusions to mothers.
February 20, 2016
2.5 stars.
The Colossus was the first and only poetry collection by Sylvia Plath published in her lifetime, and unfortunately it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. From what I understand of the collection, the order in which the poems appear in the collection is generally chronological, and you are able to see Plath's poetry expand and her ability grow throughout the course of reading the book.
I find Plath's poetry at times to be beautiful and arresting, but more often than not in this collection I was either bored or bemused. Plath uses a great deal of metaphor in her poems, but to me it was not always that clear exactly what images she was trying to convey, which affected my ability to enjoy them and 'read into them'. Instead I just found them quite verbose at points.
I noticed another reviewer on here had commented that they would not have known when any of Plath's poems had ended if it wasn't for the fact there was a large blank space at the end - and honestly I had to agree. I didn't feel like there was a great finality or rhythm to most of the poems contained here. I also found that a lot of the poems, particularly nearer the beginning of the collection, focused a little too much on nature and fairytale whimsy for my personal tastes.
However, there are some poems in here that I am still thinking about, and that I think really show the talent for writing that Plath clearly had - the titular poem The Colossus had an amazing Lilliputian Gulliver's Travels kind of vibe, and my absolute favourite was The Ghost's Leavetaking which held a beautiful, dream-like quality and made me consider the difference between the dreamworld and the waking world. I would thoroughly recommend these two poems, if you are mulling over whether or not to pick up this collection.
Overall not a fantastic read for me, but there were enough gems in there that I'm glad I picked it up.
The Colossus was the first and only poetry collection by Sylvia Plath published in her lifetime, and unfortunately it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. From what I understand of the collection, the order in which the poems appear in the collection is generally chronological, and you are able to see Plath's poetry expand and her ability grow throughout the course of reading the book.
I find Plath's poetry at times to be beautiful and arresting, but more often than not in this collection I was either bored or bemused. Plath uses a great deal of metaphor in her poems, but to me it was not always that clear exactly what images she was trying to convey, which affected my ability to enjoy them and 'read into them'. Instead I just found them quite verbose at points.
I noticed another reviewer on here had commented that they would not have known when any of Plath's poems had ended if it wasn't for the fact there was a large blank space at the end - and honestly I had to agree. I didn't feel like there was a great finality or rhythm to most of the poems contained here. I also found that a lot of the poems, particularly nearer the beginning of the collection, focused a little too much on nature and fairytale whimsy for my personal tastes.
However, there are some poems in here that I am still thinking about, and that I think really show the talent for writing that Plath clearly had - the titular poem The Colossus had an amazing Lilliputian Gulliver's Travels kind of vibe, and my absolute favourite was The Ghost's Leavetaking which held a beautiful, dream-like quality and made me consider the difference between the dreamworld and the waking world. I would thoroughly recommend these two poems, if you are mulling over whether or not to pick up this collection.
Overall not a fantastic read for me, but there were enough gems in there that I'm glad I picked it up.
July 11, 2016
Sylvia Plath's words are magical, haunting, beautiful, and forever burned into my brain. May you rest in peace, you tortured, gorgeous, sensitive soul you.
November 1, 2022
Plath’s first book of poetry published (quite coincidentally) on 31 October 1960 and still very much influenced by Hughes. All the hallmarks of her later work are here but there’s room to move and a slight self-consciousness too.
The rich imagery and word choice lends itself best to a straight read through, a showering of impressions and free associations before returning to each poem anew to collect its treasures.
The rich imagery and word choice lends itself best to a straight read through, a showering of impressions and free associations before returning to each poem anew to collect its treasures.
March 5, 2018
Plath writes poems that are elemental, attuned to the natural world, transfixed by decay, yet at times darkly humorous. Many are inscrutable on first reading, but become magically alive on the second. Others sing with clarity from the beginning � I like these best.
March 21, 2010
Poor Colossus. I've never given the collection much credit; like many, I was rather blinded by the incandescence of the Ariel poems, and tended to think of this book as a sort of worksheet preparing for those late poems. But that isn't an entirely fair assessment. Sure, some of the poems here feel like drafts for what would come later ("Man In Black" seems to predict "Medusa," "Moonrise" feels like the exercise that enabled her to write "Blackberrying"), and some seem a bit too stiflingly in the shadow of Plath's poetic ancestors, but many of these illuminate how great a wordsmith Plath really was, albeit a thesaurus-obsessed one. Thus, in "Sow," you have the beast in question
"hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies / Shrilling her hulk / to halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast / Brobdingnag bulk / of a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black compost, / fat-rutted eyes / dream-filmed."
Or in "Aftermath," the beautiful, disturbing image of Medea: "Mother Medea in a green smock / moves humbly as any housewife through / her ruined apartments, taking stock / of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery: / Cheated of the pyre and the rack, / the crowd sucks her last tear and turns away."
Though again, I definitely see that moment in "Aftermath" as a precursor to the "peanut-crunching crowd" shoving in to see Plath's Lady Lazarus commit the "big strip tease." In any case, there are numerous brave, breathtaking, hard-edged poems here. The book is obsessed with the borders between land and sea, and so fiddler crabs and gulls and suicides off egg rocks permeate these vignettes. Death always hangs along the periphery for Plath, whether in the shadows seeping through each crack of her spot-on phrasings or in the tangible forms of faceless, darning-head muses or blue moles that have killed one another in tragedic Shakespearian battles.
This is really Plath as her "least confessional"--these are stunning glimpses into a natural world that is brutal and frightening, though perfectly ordered. The speakers of the poems and the characters in them are the ones that invoke chaos and suffer under the strict parameters of natural existence that has become so mythical in these poems, as with the sow, the blue moles, the dead snake in "Medallion." If anything is wrong with the world of The Colossus it is that we've interfered with it, unprepared for the consequences.
"hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies / Shrilling her hulk / to halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast / Brobdingnag bulk / of a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black compost, / fat-rutted eyes / dream-filmed."
Or in "Aftermath," the beautiful, disturbing image of Medea: "Mother Medea in a green smock / moves humbly as any housewife through / her ruined apartments, taking stock / of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery: / Cheated of the pyre and the rack, / the crowd sucks her last tear and turns away."
Though again, I definitely see that moment in "Aftermath" as a precursor to the "peanut-crunching crowd" shoving in to see Plath's Lady Lazarus commit the "big strip tease." In any case, there are numerous brave, breathtaking, hard-edged poems here. The book is obsessed with the borders between land and sea, and so fiddler crabs and gulls and suicides off egg rocks permeate these vignettes. Death always hangs along the periphery for Plath, whether in the shadows seeping through each crack of her spot-on phrasings or in the tangible forms of faceless, darning-head muses or blue moles that have killed one another in tragedic Shakespearian battles.
This is really Plath as her "least confessional"--these are stunning glimpses into a natural world that is brutal and frightening, though perfectly ordered. The speakers of the poems and the characters in them are the ones that invoke chaos and suffer under the strict parameters of natural existence that has become so mythical in these poems, as with the sow, the blue moles, the dead snake in "Medallion." If anything is wrong with the world of The Colossus it is that we've interfered with it, unprepared for the consequences.
April 2, 2019
Lorelei
It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling-
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.
It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling-
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.
January 9, 2025
“� 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘬-𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴.
𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥.�
Cold. Stark. Dewey. Gauze for fog. What should be a crisp, clean morning is actually spurious of fragrant past and dust motes of now. Like sitting on a damp log for too long without realizing that the ants are up your leg and all over your skin and there is more dirt around you more than you’d like to be in.
Plath plays with language through sound and observation. I imagine lots of walks through the woods. Turning over mushrooms. Watching still water from circles by way of diving bells and striders. Or pure air form breath, to give Mother Nature life, a body, a purpose. Most of the poems come with a vagueness to them, but it’s nice, once in a while, to get lost in a stroll in the woods.
𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥.�
Cold. Stark. Dewey. Gauze for fog. What should be a crisp, clean morning is actually spurious of fragrant past and dust motes of now. Like sitting on a damp log for too long without realizing that the ants are up your leg and all over your skin and there is more dirt around you more than you’d like to be in.
Plath plays with language through sound and observation. I imagine lots of walks through the woods. Turning over mushrooms. Watching still water from circles by way of diving bells and striders. Or pure air form breath, to give Mother Nature life, a body, a purpose. Most of the poems come with a vagueness to them, but it’s nice, once in a while, to get lost in a stroll in the woods.
June 23, 2015
I discovered Sylvia Plath as an undergraduate freshman, introduced to The Bell Jar by my very good friend and drama student, Linda. Linda's perspective of life was that life was art. She would often model nude for drawing studies on campus and attempted, on several occasions, to induce me to do the same. I chatted with her one evening as she disrobed in front of me for the art class and I then watched, in a mix of awe and embarrassment, as the the class of about 20 sketched her in charcoal.
The reason I mention this occasion is that as much as I wanted to understand Sylvia Plath, this book of poetry only became accessible once I began to understand Linda's ability to open herself to others. Plath bared herself in a way in which I not only felt awkward and shy, but with a power that initially made me feel like I was sitting too close to the stage, as it were. Here was a woman who wrote without any apology for who she was. In my estimation she offended the very ones who felt obliged to judge and evaluate her.
There is little doubt that she was angry that she was required to write like a woman and remain firmly ensconced within feminine issues. In fact, had this been her only demon, perhaps she might have lived, battled against the tide and produced even more marvelous poetry. She could not persevere, I suspect, with the idea that the world expected her to BE just a woman.
Today I remain surprised that this volume was ever published. Its power spits in the face of social domination. Plath will have none of that:
I fell into Plath's spell on several occasions during my freshman year. In many ways, I felt a strange discontinuity in my life when I read her, as if what I was studying in class had little to do with the life force struggling to live and burst forth from the earth. One was in my head and the other permeated everything else inside me.
Linda would often sit or walk with me when I was under the spell and I would talk breathlessly about one point or another, all with what I thought was an emulation of Plath's deep seated passion. One morning walking across campus, me to chemistry and she to a literature class, she stopped me and we stood facing one another. She smiled at the surprised look on my face. She kissed me on the cheek, and turned and walked away. I stood stunned, unable to comprehend. Finally I went on to chemistry class, although unable to concentrate.
I thought a great deal about that moment and I cannot tell you how long I spent until I came to understand, but it was probably years later, long enough so that I recognized that Plath and my despondency went together all too well.
Like Plath, I became married to shadow without being inspired to proceed. She was something dangerous to me and at the same time so appealing, having touched an element deep inside. I asked myself if this was Plath's inevitable path towards tragedy.
Still, one day I understood; I understood Linda, I understood the meaning of art and I understood Linda's tender kiss. The problem was that I only understood Sylvia Plath in my head. She kept reaching inside of me and I would translate that back to an intellectual endeavor.
In order to become free of the tragedy, I had to, as it were, disrobe in front of others without fear, without modesty and without embarrassment. It was a slow process, but it was a necessary one. Sylvia Plath, through her own tragedy of a life, had shown me the way to overcome the bonds of social acceptability and live my own art of a life. Perhaps if one learns to disregard one's critics in the name of art, not looking back, the schizophrenia is optional.
This is a monumental book of poetry, beautiful imagery and excellent form. Its truths do not come gently but like a knife without warning, without expectation and without answers. She is a very fine craftsman of language, but, perhaps, language displayed not without hints of her inevitable demise. Plath may have been swinging at some of her demons without result, but she teaches us that dealing with them isn't like inviting them for tea. She is one of the great modern pioneers of literature who had to fight too hard to breathe the rarefied air of excellence.
The reason I mention this occasion is that as much as I wanted to understand Sylvia Plath, this book of poetry only became accessible once I began to understand Linda's ability to open herself to others. Plath bared herself in a way in which I not only felt awkward and shy, but with a power that initially made me feel like I was sitting too close to the stage, as it were. Here was a woman who wrote without any apology for who she was. In my estimation she offended the very ones who felt obliged to judge and evaluate her.
There is little doubt that she was angry that she was required to write like a woman and remain firmly ensconced within feminine issues. In fact, had this been her only demon, perhaps she might have lived, battled against the tide and produced even more marvelous poetry. She could not persevere, I suspect, with the idea that the world expected her to BE just a woman.
Today I remain surprised that this volume was ever published. Its power spits in the face of social domination. Plath will have none of that:
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.
I fell into Plath's spell on several occasions during my freshman year. In many ways, I felt a strange discontinuity in my life when I read her, as if what I was studying in class had little to do with the life force struggling to live and burst forth from the earth. One was in my head and the other permeated everything else inside me.
Linda would often sit or walk with me when I was under the spell and I would talk breathlessly about one point or another, all with what I thought was an emulation of Plath's deep seated passion. One morning walking across campus, me to chemistry and she to a literature class, she stopped me and we stood facing one another. She smiled at the surprised look on my face. She kissed me on the cheek, and turned and walked away. I stood stunned, unable to comprehend. Finally I went on to chemistry class, although unable to concentrate.
I thought a great deal about that moment and I cannot tell you how long I spent until I came to understand, but it was probably years later, long enough so that I recognized that Plath and my despondency went together all too well.
My hours are married to shadow.
Like Plath, I became married to shadow without being inspired to proceed. She was something dangerous to me and at the same time so appealing, having touched an element deep inside. I asked myself if this was Plath's inevitable path towards tragedy.
Still, one day I understood; I understood Linda, I understood the meaning of art and I understood Linda's tender kiss. The problem was that I only understood Sylvia Plath in my head. She kept reaching inside of me and I would translate that back to an intellectual endeavor.
In order to become free of the tragedy, I had to, as it were, disrobe in front of others without fear, without modesty and without embarrassment. It was a slow process, but it was a necessary one. Sylvia Plath, through her own tragedy of a life, had shown me the way to overcome the bonds of social acceptability and live my own art of a life. Perhaps if one learns to disregard one's critics in the name of art, not looking back, the schizophrenia is optional.
This is a monumental book of poetry, beautiful imagery and excellent form. Its truths do not come gently but like a knife without warning, without expectation and without answers. She is a very fine craftsman of language, but, perhaps, language displayed not without hints of her inevitable demise. Plath may have been swinging at some of her demons without result, but she teaches us that dealing with them isn't like inviting them for tea. She is one of the great modern pioneers of literature who had to fight too hard to breathe the rarefied air of excellence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2021
Okay. Well. Wow. Need to read poetry more often, clearly.
- "What I want back is what I was"
- "My hours are married to shadow"
- "Love is the bone and sinew of my curse"
- "What I want back is what I was"
- "My hours are married to shadow"
- "Love is the bone and sinew of my curse"
July 23, 2019
The Colossus
I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or
other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.
Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails
of lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.
A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman
Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are
littered
In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-
color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.
I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or
other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.
Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails
of lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.
A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman
Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are
littered
In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-
color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.
April 7, 2023
En esta, la primera recopilación de poemas publicados por la autora, ya puede atestiguarse su inexorable lucha por descifrar el mundo a su alrededor con una mirada honesta pero oscura y un estilo personal que a menudo exuda una perturbadora pero inquietante autenticidad.
Sylvia Plath no sólo nos deleita con un bellísimo dominio de la palabra sino que nos atraviesa con la crudeza simbólica que impregna sus versos convirtiéndolos en un arma cargada y bien apuntada que nos da en el pecho y a quema ropa.
Sylvia Plath no sólo nos deleita con un bellísimo dominio de la palabra sino que nos atraviesa con la crudeza simbólica que impregna sus versos convirtiéndolos en un arma cargada y bien apuntada que nos da en el pecho y a quema ropa.
Read
September 13, 2023{Lines from my favorites or favorite lines, with my words within these brackets}:
{Review in reverse order, 100% complete}
Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbour -
The mussels hung dull blue and
Conspicuous, yet it seemed
A sly world’s hinges had swung
Shut against me. All held still.
{And}
Grass put forth claws;
Small mud knobs, nudged from under,
Displaced their domes as tiny
Knights might doff their casques.
The Burnt-Out Spa -
{Omitted} I can’t tell
How long his carcase has foundered under
The rubbish of summers, the black-leaved falls.
Now little weeds insinuate
Soft suede tongues between his bones.
His armourplate, his toppled stones
Are an esplanade for crickets.
I pick and pry like a doctor or
Archaeologist among
Iron entrails, enamel bowls,
The coils and pipes that made him run.
Poem for a Birthday -
{From Part 1} - Who
This shed’s fusty as a mummy’s stomach:
Old tools, handles and rusty tusks.
{And from Part 1}
Let me sit in a flowerpot,
The spiders won’t notice.
{And from Part 2} - Dark House
I am round as an owl,
I see by my own light.
{And from Part 3} - Maenad
{Omitted} Time
Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun
Its endless glitter.
I must swallow it all.
{And from Part 4} - The Beast
The sun sat in his armpit.
Nothing went mouldy. The little invisibles
Waited on him hand and foot.
{And from Part 4}
I’ve married a cupboard of rubbish.
I bed in a fish puddle.
Down here the sky is always falling.
{And from Part 6} - Witch Burning
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am a dartboard for witches.
{And from Part 6}
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.
It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.
If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. {My Break}
{And from Part 6}
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
{And from Part 7} - The Stones
This is the city where men are mended.
I lie on a great anvil.
The flat blue sky-circle
Flew off like the hat of a doll
When I fell out of the light.
{And from Part 7}
The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.
My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber.
Here they can doctor heads, or any limb.
On Fridays the little children come
To trade their hooks for hands.
Dead men leave eyes for others.
{Review in reverse order, 75% complete}
Blue Moles -
By day, only the topsoil heaves.
Down there one is alone.
Outsize hands prepare a path,
They go before: opening the veins,
Delving for the appendages
Of beetles, sweetbreads, shards—to be eaten
Over and over. {My Break}
Ouija -
The old god dribbles, in return, his words.
The old god, too, writes aureate poetry
In tarnished modes, maundering among the wastes,
Fair chronicler of every foul declension.
Age, and ages of prose, have uncoiled
His talking whirlwind, abated his excessive temper
When words, like locusts, drummed the darkening air
And left the cobs to rattle, bitten clean.
Snakecharmer -
Pipes water green until green waters waver
With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.
And as his notes twine green, the green river
Shapes its images around his songs.
The Disquieting Muses -
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my travelling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
Medallion -
By the gate with star and moon
Worked into the peeled orange wood
The bronze snake lay in the sun
Inert as a shoelace; {My Break}
{And}
Over my hand I hung him.
His little vermilion eye
Ignited with a glassed flame
As I turned him in the light;
When I split a rock one time
The garnet bits burned like that.
Dust dulled his back to ochre
The way sun ruins a trout.
Yet his belly kept its fire
Going under the chainmail,
The old jewels smouldering there
In each opaque belly-scale:
Sunset looked at through milk glass.
{Review in reverse order, 50% complete}
The Thin People -
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Suicide off Egg Rock -
Sun struck the water like a damnation.
No pit of shadow to crawl into,
And his blood beating the old tattoo
I am, I am, I am. {My Break}
{And}
The words in his book wormed off the pages.
Everything glittered like blank paper.
Mushrooms -
{Omitted} We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
{And}
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
I Want, I Want -
Open-mouthed, the baby god
Immense, bald, though baby-headed,
Cried out for the mother’s dug.
The dry volcanoes cracked and spit,
Sand abraded the milkless lip.
The Ghost's Leavetaking -
Go, ghost of our mother and father, ghost of us,
And ghost of our dreams� children, in those sheets
Which signify our origin and end,
To the cloud-cuckoo land of colour wheels
And pristine alphabets and cows that moo
And moo as they jump over moons as new
As that crisp cusp toward which you voyage now.
A Winter Ship -
At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of.
Red and orange barges list and blister
Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy,
And apparently indestructible.
The sea pulses under a skin of oil.
A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole,
Riding the tide of the wind, steady
As wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes,
The whole flat harbour anchored in
The round of his yellow eye-button.
{And}
Even our shadows are blue with cold.
We wanted to see the sun come up
And are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship,
Bearded and blown, an albatross of frost,
Relic of tough weather, every winch and stay
Encased in a glassy pellicle.
The sun will diminish it soon enough:
Each wave-tip glitters like a knife.
Full Fathom Five -
Ages beat like rains
On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. {My Break}
{And}
I walk dry on your kingdom’s border
Exiled to no good.
Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.
{25% complete}
Hardcastle Crags -
And the sandman’s dust
Lost lustre under her footsoles.
Faun -
No sound but a drunken coot
Lurching home along river bank.
Departure -
Retrospect shall not soften such penury�
Sun’s brass, the moon’s steely patinas,
The leaden slag of the world�
But always expose
The scraggy rock spit shielding the town’s blue bay
Against which the brunt of outer sea
Beats, is brutal endlessly.
The Colossus -
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
{And}
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
{And}
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.
Lorelei -
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculpted marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. {My Break}
{Review in reverse order, 100% complete}
Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbour -
The mussels hung dull blue and
Conspicuous, yet it seemed
A sly world’s hinges had swung
Shut against me. All held still.
{And}
Grass put forth claws;
Small mud knobs, nudged from under,
Displaced their domes as tiny
Knights might doff their casques.
The Burnt-Out Spa -
{Omitted} I can’t tell
How long his carcase has foundered under
The rubbish of summers, the black-leaved falls.
Now little weeds insinuate
Soft suede tongues between his bones.
His armourplate, his toppled stones
Are an esplanade for crickets.
I pick and pry like a doctor or
Archaeologist among
Iron entrails, enamel bowls,
The coils and pipes that made him run.
Poem for a Birthday -
{From Part 1} - Who
This shed’s fusty as a mummy’s stomach:
Old tools, handles and rusty tusks.
{And from Part 1}
Let me sit in a flowerpot,
The spiders won’t notice.
{And from Part 2} - Dark House
I am round as an owl,
I see by my own light.
{And from Part 3} - Maenad
{Omitted} Time
Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun
Its endless glitter.
I must swallow it all.
{And from Part 4} - The Beast
The sun sat in his armpit.
Nothing went mouldy. The little invisibles
Waited on him hand and foot.
{And from Part 4}
I’ve married a cupboard of rubbish.
I bed in a fish puddle.
Down here the sky is always falling.
{And from Part 6} - Witch Burning
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am a dartboard for witches.
{And from Part 6}
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.
It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.
If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. {My Break}
{And from Part 6}
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
{And from Part 7} - The Stones
This is the city where men are mended.
I lie on a great anvil.
The flat blue sky-circle
Flew off like the hat of a doll
When I fell out of the light.
{And from Part 7}
The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.
My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber.
Here they can doctor heads, or any limb.
On Fridays the little children come
To trade their hooks for hands.
Dead men leave eyes for others.
{Review in reverse order, 75% complete}
Blue Moles -
By day, only the topsoil heaves.
Down there one is alone.
Outsize hands prepare a path,
They go before: opening the veins,
Delving for the appendages
Of beetles, sweetbreads, shards—to be eaten
Over and over. {My Break}
Ouija -
The old god dribbles, in return, his words.
The old god, too, writes aureate poetry
In tarnished modes, maundering among the wastes,
Fair chronicler of every foul declension.
Age, and ages of prose, have uncoiled
His talking whirlwind, abated his excessive temper
When words, like locusts, drummed the darkening air
And left the cobs to rattle, bitten clean.
Snakecharmer -
Pipes water green until green waters waver
With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.
And as his notes twine green, the green river
Shapes its images around his songs.
The Disquieting Muses -
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my travelling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
Medallion -
By the gate with star and moon
Worked into the peeled orange wood
The bronze snake lay in the sun
Inert as a shoelace; {My Break}
{And}
Over my hand I hung him.
His little vermilion eye
Ignited with a glassed flame
As I turned him in the light;
When I split a rock one time
The garnet bits burned like that.
Dust dulled his back to ochre
The way sun ruins a trout.
Yet his belly kept its fire
Going under the chainmail,
The old jewels smouldering there
In each opaque belly-scale:
Sunset looked at through milk glass.
{Review in reverse order, 50% complete}
The Thin People -
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Suicide off Egg Rock -
Sun struck the water like a damnation.
No pit of shadow to crawl into,
And his blood beating the old tattoo
I am, I am, I am. {My Break}
{And}
The words in his book wormed off the pages.
Everything glittered like blank paper.
Mushrooms -
{Omitted} We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
{And}
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
I Want, I Want -
Open-mouthed, the baby god
Immense, bald, though baby-headed,
Cried out for the mother’s dug.
The dry volcanoes cracked and spit,
Sand abraded the milkless lip.
The Ghost's Leavetaking -
Go, ghost of our mother and father, ghost of us,
And ghost of our dreams� children, in those sheets
Which signify our origin and end,
To the cloud-cuckoo land of colour wheels
And pristine alphabets and cows that moo
And moo as they jump over moons as new
As that crisp cusp toward which you voyage now.
A Winter Ship -
At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of.
Red and orange barges list and blister
Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy,
And apparently indestructible.
The sea pulses under a skin of oil.
A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole,
Riding the tide of the wind, steady
As wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes,
The whole flat harbour anchored in
The round of his yellow eye-button.
{And}
Even our shadows are blue with cold.
We wanted to see the sun come up
And are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship,
Bearded and blown, an albatross of frost,
Relic of tough weather, every winch and stay
Encased in a glassy pellicle.
The sun will diminish it soon enough:
Each wave-tip glitters like a knife.
Full Fathom Five -
Ages beat like rains
On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. {My Break}
{And}
I walk dry on your kingdom’s border
Exiled to no good.
Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.
{25% complete}
Hardcastle Crags -
And the sandman’s dust
Lost lustre under her footsoles.
Faun -
No sound but a drunken coot
Lurching home along river bank.
Departure -
Retrospect shall not soften such penury�
Sun’s brass, the moon’s steely patinas,
The leaden slag of the world�
But always expose
The scraggy rock spit shielding the town’s blue bay
Against which the brunt of outer sea
Beats, is brutal endlessly.
The Colossus -
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
{And}
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
{And}
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.
Lorelei -
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculpted marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. {My Break}
July 25, 2009
Have this book on your bedside table for those lonely, stormy nights when you want to hide underneath your covers and read something dark and meaningful. Sylvia's a beautiful writer - there's no denying I'm a fan. I like that we get to see inside her nightmares, and subsequently, our own. My copy of this collection is filled with annotations in the margins, creased pages, and wear and tear from constant use. Many of the poems are plain out disturbing and you're not going to get a 'feel good' experience out of this book - odds are you'll get some shivers down your spine, you'll probably even shudder a time or two. But sometimes its nice to explore our dark side, run underneath the shadows of all those pent up emotions, all those forgotten dreams and hurts... and there's no better person than Sylvia Plath to make us feel afraid and love it .
January 8, 2013
Plath is a poet more to be admired than loved. At times she leaves a crack to look through, displays her vulnerability, but so much of what she writes feels overly academic, overly composed, overly self-conscious. Poetry seems a scholarly exercise, rather than an expression of feeling to her. That said, 'On the Difficulty of Conjuring up a Dryad' and 'Black Rook in Rainy Weather' are beautiful exceptions.
"No doubt now in dream-propertied fall some moon-eyed,/ star-lucky sleight-of-hand man watches/ My jilting lady squander coin, gold leaf stock ditches,/ And the opulent air go studded with seed,/ While this beggared brain/ Hatches no fortune,/ But from leaf, from grass,/ Thieves what it has."
"No doubt now in dream-propertied fall some moon-eyed,/ star-lucky sleight-of-hand man watches/ My jilting lady squander coin, gold leaf stock ditches,/ And the opulent air go studded with seed,/ While this beggared brain/ Hatches no fortune,/ But from leaf, from grass,/ Thieves what it has."
May 21, 2024
3.5
Sylvia Plath 🤝🏻 Clarice Lispector
Sylvia Plath 🤝🏻 Clarice Lispector
April 11, 2016
"The Colossus," from what I understand, was Plath's first published collection of poetry. During this early phase of Plath's career, she still treated the act of writing poetry as a laborious and painstaking process, often diligently looking up words in the thesaurus and then inserting many synonyms of one word into a single composition. This rather pedantic attitude toward poetry shows in these poems, many of which devoutly adhere to difficult rhyme schemes (albeit frequently using slant rhymes) and all of which are marked by a studied attention to detail, both visual and sonic. These poems simply don't *soar* the way the free-verse poems in "Ariel" (Plath's second book) do; they are just not as vibrant or as lively as her later work. These are bleak poems, characterized by a wealth of vivid tactile detail, but somewhat lacking in color and movement. Plath frequently uses the terza-rima rhyme scheme that Dante patented, as though to suggest that life, for her, is a slow, laborious, yet dignified plod through hell. In this book, Plath shows that she can write good poems, but she does not make the art of writing good poems seem easy.
I do not, however, mean to imply that this is not a useful book for aspiring poets to read. It is, doubtless, a very important book to read if one wishes to understand how Plath developed into the brilliant, oracular voice that spouted "Ariel." And since Sylvia Plath started writing poetry seriously at a very early age, it is perhaps unfair to dismissively refer to this book -- which she published at the ripe old age of 25 -- as her "early work." There are many remarkable things about this book, not the least of which is the way Plath elevates mundane topics (e.g., men working the night shift, or prize pigs) to the level of high poetry, armoring them with an impervious Dante-esque dignity. To Plath, even the smallest things in life are worthy of attention.
I do not, however, mean to imply that this is not a useful book for aspiring poets to read. It is, doubtless, a very important book to read if one wishes to understand how Plath developed into the brilliant, oracular voice that spouted "Ariel." And since Sylvia Plath started writing poetry seriously at a very early age, it is perhaps unfair to dismissively refer to this book -- which she published at the ripe old age of 25 -- as her "early work." There are many remarkable things about this book, not the least of which is the way Plath elevates mundane topics (e.g., men working the night shift, or prize pigs) to the level of high poetry, armoring them with an impervious Dante-esque dignity. To Plath, even the smallest things in life are worthy of attention.
March 8, 2018
і я б ще українською її складну та депресивну поезію почитала. Багата на Образи, символи, незвична та незвичайна, як і сама Сильвія Плат! Перекладіть українською!
September 22, 2024
“I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.�
Empezó la primavera y reviví. Never beating the Perséfone allegations.
Ariel tiene los poemas que son el mito Plath. Tan personales que muchas veces es difícil descifrarlos. The Colossus es su amor por la literatura. Los instantes, los mitos, una felicidad enorme y estable. Tiene una leve influencia imagista, una apreciación muy sublime por el exterior, lleno de imágenes del mundo como pinturas, muy distinto al lugar de la introversión y el cinismo latente de Ariel; excepto por el último poema, en el que narra una lobotomía:
“Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.
The vase, reconstructed, houses
The elusive rose.
Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows.
My mendings itch. There is nothing to do.
I shall be good as new.�
Check out esta sibilancia:
“Now little weeds insinuate
Soft suede tongues between his bones.�
Y uno de los mejores poemas:
Lorelei
t is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculpted marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling--
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, Stone, ferry me down there.
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.�
Empezó la primavera y reviví. Never beating the Perséfone allegations.
Ariel tiene los poemas que son el mito Plath. Tan personales que muchas veces es difícil descifrarlos. The Colossus es su amor por la literatura. Los instantes, los mitos, una felicidad enorme y estable. Tiene una leve influencia imagista, una apreciación muy sublime por el exterior, lleno de imágenes del mundo como pinturas, muy distinto al lugar de la introversión y el cinismo latente de Ariel; excepto por el último poema, en el que narra una lobotomía:
“Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.
The vase, reconstructed, houses
The elusive rose.
Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows.
My mendings itch. There is nothing to do.
I shall be good as new.�
Check out esta sibilancia:
“Now little weeds insinuate
Soft suede tongues between his bones.�
Y uno de los mejores poemas:
Lorelei
t is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculpted marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling--
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, Stone, ferry me down there.
September 26, 2023
this collection picked up after the second half. the first half i struggled to connect with - odd, seeing as i was such a fan of ariel and the bell jar. i think that considering context, ariel had a real sense of rawness and burst of creativity that colossus lacked - colossus was too poised, too structured, and after seeing ariel i felt as if the poems were confined, and weren't at their full. however, this started to change in the second half where i encountered several stunning poems - the ghost's leavetaking, black rook in rainy weather, a winter ship, ouija, poem for a birthday.... that's when plath really shined through. overall, it was a nice collection, but less impressive than ariel - i wouldn't come back to this save for the named poems that i very much enjoyed. plath is undoubtedly talented, and this collection is by no means bad - just mainly not for me. lady lazarus supremacy
July 9, 2024
This collection contains forty poems. Unfortunately, none of them captured my attention. I thought maybe the timing of the read impacted my experience, so I gave it a second read. The first time was at the end of a workday, snuggled up and cozy in bed. The second time was a weekend morning, curled up on the couch with coffee in hand. Both experiences left me feeling the same, a reader that missed the connection.
Words that came to mind after reading it:
Nature/Death/Time Marches On
I will say that the collection was well put together. There was a flow to it. I read it both times from front to back and it was evident it was a journey through something. Like how a thought in my own mind will lead to another, and then another, along a trail of loose connections.
Words that come to mind reflecting back on it:
Cold Beauty/Sharp/It Just Is
Three stars to a read I tried with all I had to like more than I did.
Words that came to mind after reading it:
Nature/Death/Time Marches On
I will say that the collection was well put together. There was a flow to it. I read it both times from front to back and it was evident it was a journey through something. Like how a thought in my own mind will lead to another, and then another, along a trail of loose connections.
Words that come to mind reflecting back on it:
Cold Beauty/Sharp/It Just Is
Three stars to a read I tried with all I had to like more than I did.
August 2, 2021
Few people immediately think of Sylvia (with her woodsy name) as a nature poet, but she is in . Our nature is to die. Forest, shore, and meadow are explored; all springing towards decay. I would have given it five stars, but she brought a curse on so many young women; I withheld.
She often evokes a lost father, a sea king/god, but the reunion is death, of course. I liked "Spinster" and the final poem "The Stones" and the ones that evoke nursery rhymes - "The sea broke in at every crack, Pellmell, blueblack." I liked the words in all of them.
Reread in one sitting 45 years after the first time.
She often evokes a lost father, a sea king/god, but the reunion is death, of course. I liked "Spinster" and the final poem "The Stones" and the ones that evoke nursery rhymes - "The sea broke in at every crack, Pellmell, blueblack." I liked the words in all of them.
Reread in one sitting 45 years after the first time.
October 24, 2015
The only way I could tell if Plath had ended a poem is when there was considerable blank space after the last line. And when a poem did indeed reach the last printable line on an odd-numbered page, it was only when I turned the page that I discovered if a poem had ended, or not. One can switch verses around, retitle them any ol' way, print everything backwards, whatever. As the "genius-with-word-and-song" Kurt Cobain famously begged, "Here we are now, entertain us." But to Plath, no doubt, he wailed only "Nevermind."
November 10, 2016
I did not find this collection particularly enjoyable, which was a massive shame as I'm entirely obsessed with Plath at the minute. I think it's massively less confessional than Ariel so I found it a bit uncomfortable in that sense, I kind of like when poets confess all their shit! But yeah, I'm not sure what it was it just didn't strike me in anyway, no poem in particular stood out as amazing, quite disappointed
August 1, 2017
4.5 stars. This was the first full collection of Plath's poem that I'd read and I absolutely loved it. The poems in this collection contained fresh images and there were no staleness nor redundancy. I fully ascertained the reason why Plath is regarded as one of the best poets.
September 7, 2015
One or two poems are quite good,
the others are utterly tedious!
the others are utterly tedious!
Read
July 29, 2021Trudno mi ocenić coś tak... intymnego.
Ale, jeśli lubicie poezję, Sylvia na pewno Wam się spodoba.
Ale, jeśli lubicie poezję, Sylvia na pewno Wam się spodoba.
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