Customer Reviews

The Collected Poems (Harper Colophon Books)

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I write this from a different standpoint than many of the previous reviewers have. And in doing so, I do not mean to step on the toes of the many devoted Plath fans in the world.

I am, unfortunately, by no means a poetry connoisseur. I enjoy poetry, especially many of the classics, but I know very little about it. Perhaps this is the reason that I don't "GET" much of Sylvia Plath's poetry. Most of the poems in this collection had meanings that eluded me. I was left at the end of them saying, "What's the point?"

I didn't feel that I grew from reading many of the poems. I didn't feel that I learned from them. Her early poetry (the book is arranged in chronological order) was harder for me to get into. Later poems, because of their more personal tone and deeper emotions, were better. Some of my favorites came around the time she had a miscarriage, as I could connect with those on a deeper level, having been there myself. Very late poems, so dark and sad, I just wanted to speed through and to get away from before they could effect me so.

Aside from the content, the style of writing was not one that I really enjoyed. It didn't keep my attention. I know this may make me come across as being either a.d.d. or stupid but, honestly, many people in my generation (think 20-30 years) are going to think the same thing.

For fans of Plath, I'm sure that this is a must-have book. For casual poetry readers, it may not be the best choice.

Anyone who might have the luxury of reading this volume sans a background of hype on its author is lucky indeed. Perishing a self-inflicted death about a decade before her status left that of human and became one of icon, I've often wondered what Plath would have made of the image she has become in the minds of so many fanatical devotees. In this book, one might be able to set aside the burden of background and concentrate solely on Plath the poet. Or more correctly: Plath's poetry.

Devoid the legend (largely, I think, created from wholecloth by a generation in need of a martyred antihero) one is left with a body of writings that emcompasses a novel (The Bell Jar) and the several hundred poems collected here, all written by Plath over the period of about ten years. What is instantly clear is that Plath was a poet of her era. Her range may have grown with time--time she did not allow herself to possess--but within her life she never strayed from her caste or delivered up a poem that was other than the sort in vogue in the mid-twentieth century.

Sometimes Plath, the poet, wrote memorable, moving pieces, at other times she was not beyond turning out fluff. A few poems within her body of work are downright incomprehensible. Just a few are truly genius, such as "Lady Lazarus" and "Mushrooms". Her description of her favorite horse, Ariel, as "the great lioness of God" is somehow more personal and touching than ten pages worth of her death-centered bitter screaming.

From what we in the public know of her (or think we do) Plath was clearly a soul in anguish, and yet, I began to wonder, if these poems were all we had to go by, if we did not know the story behind these works, if we didn't go into her output prescient of her selfish suicide, would we still understand what she was saying? I think we might not.

This is a collection of uneven merit. At moments it ranges into heights and depths bespeaking of mastery of language and art, at other times I was left wondering if in raiding the notebooks of a dead woman, the editors did not include works plath would never have intended anyone to see.