Crossing the Water [Paperback]

Sylvia Plath (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 1980

The Poetry of Sylvia Plath.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and The Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. A complete and uncut facsimile edition of Ariel was published in 2004 with her original selection and arrangement of poems. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas. She died in London in 1963.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 9, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060907894
• ISBN-13: 978-0060907891
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly transitional poems, June 16, 2000

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Joshua Krist (San Francisco, Calif.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crossing the Water (Paperback)

This is probably my favorite collection of Plath poetry, although some of my favorite poems aren't in here (Morning Song is my very favorite). From the time I looked at the cover (dark waves at night, what could be better for the writer who crossed the Atlantic to die by her own hand?) to the last poem in the book, I felt that I was seeing Plath's vision at its most clearly expressed. You can feel the dark weight of her impending collapse, but her head is still above water, so to speak. I also think that it's the book with the least amount of self-pity; she's strongest as a poet and as a person in this collection. This is not to discount Ariel, which contain some of her best poems, but they're like flashes of lightning in a grey sky of self-pity. In Crossing the Water, on the other hand, we get to see the loneliness of the long distance swimmer, sure and strong, who knows she's heading into danger.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How harsh and wild the metaphor Excess of feeling in poetry is no vice, October 27, 2009

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Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crossing the Water (Paperback)

This volume was put together by Ted Hughes after the death of Sylvia Plath. It contains poems written in the period between the publication of 'Colossus' and her later most famous collection'Ariel.' I know Plath's writing in a quite superficial way and would in any sense have difficulty affirming or disaffirming the iconic status she has attained in the world of poetry.
I in truth did not find the poems on the whole on what I would call the 'legendary level' that of Dickinson, Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, Yeats, those whose music make their lines incredibly memorable.
But I did find in these poems many startling and surprising lines, a world of metaphor extremely rich and often disconcerting. These are the poems, of a true original whose voice is pitched extremely high. They are poems in which the language too seems searching to reach an extreme level of feeling.
Perhaps the most well- known poem of the collection is the award winning 'Insomniac' which closes with a stanza typical of Plath.

"Nightlong , in the granite yard ,invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica- silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed."

A happier and somewhat milder mood is expressed in the poem 'Love Letter' which I take to be about her relationship with Ted Hughes.
It opens with the following stanza.

"Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though , like a stone , unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just toeme an inch,no-
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

The poetry has a clear and coherent , readily readable structure of simple sentences. But those sentences are so complicated and charged with metaphor and feeling that they are difficult to decipher and comprehend. Their music is however far from being simply lyrical, but rather is harsh, discordant wild and searching.

A true poet yes, but not one to give us calm or peace, or certitude or help from pain.

3.0 out of 5 stars The Calm Before the Storm, June 7, 2011

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SailAway - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Crossing the Water (Paperback)

Crossing the Water seems very much like the calm before the storm of Ms. Plath's Ariel. I enjoyed seeing where Sylvia was just prior to Ariel and her path Crossing the Water over to something much more startling. Like all her poetry I am still reading and trying to understand but I'm glad I purchased it if only to see her step over into the next phase.