The Collected Poems (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by Sylvia Plath

Overview

Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath’s complete poetic works, edited and introduced by Ted Hughes.

By the time of her death on 11, February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn’t get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity. So this book contains not merely what verse she saved, but—after 1956—all she wrote. — Ted Hughes, from the Introduction

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061558894
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Series:	P.S. Series
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)

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 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.

Date of Birth:

October 27, 1932

Date of Death:

February 11, 1963

Place of Birth:

Boston, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

B.A., Smith College, 1955; Fulbright Scholar, Cambridge University

Read an Excerpt

1956

Conversation Among the Ruins

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break

Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
With such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?

Winter Landscape, with Rooks

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?

Table of Contents

	Introduction	13
	Poems 1956-1963
	1956
1	Conversation Among the Ruins	21
2	Winter Landscape, with Rooks	21
3	Pursuit	22
4	Bucolics	23
5	Tale of a Tub	24
6	Southern Sunrise	26
7	Channel Crossing	26
8	Prospect	28
9	The Queen's Complaint	28
10	Ode for Ted	29
11	Firesong	30
12	Song for a Summer's Day	30
13	Two Sisters of Persephone	31
14	Vanity Fair	32
15	Strumpet Song	33
16	Tinker Jack and the Tidy Wives	34
17	Faun	35
18	Street Song	35
19	Letter to a Purist	36
20	Soliloquy of the Solipsist	37
21	Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest	38
22	The Glutton	40
23	Monologue at 3 a.m.	40
24	Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper	41
25	Recantation	41
26	The Shrike	42
27	Alicante Lullaby	43
28	Dream with Clam-Diggers	43
29	Wreath for a Bridal	44
30	Epitaph for Fire and Flower	45
31	Fiesta Melons	46
32	The Goring	47
33	The Beggars	47
34	Spider	48
35	Spinster	49
36	Rhyme	50
37	Departure	51
38	Maudlin	51
39	Resolve	52
40	Landowners	53
41	Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats	53
42	Crystal Gazer	54
43	November Graveyard	56
44	Black Rook in Rainy Weather	56
	1957
45	The Snowman on the Moor	58
46	Mayflower	60
47	Sow	60
48	The Everlasting Monday	62
49	Hardcastle Crags	62
50	The Thin People	64
51	On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad	65
52	On the Plethora of Dryads	67
53	The Other Two	68
54	The Lady and the Earthenware Head	69
55	All the Dead Dears	70
56	Natural History	71
57	Two Views of Withens	71
58	The Great Carbuncle	72
59	Words for a Nursery	73
60	The Disquieting Muses	74
61	Night Shift	76
62	Ouija	77
63	On the Decline of Oracles	78
64	Snakecharmer	79
65	A Lesson in Vengeance	80
	1958
66	Virgin in a Tree	81
67	Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering	82
68	Battle-Scene from the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer	84
69	Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lilies	85
70	A Winter's Tale	86
71	Above the Oxbow	87
72	Memoirs of a Spinach-Picker	89
73	The Ghost's Leavetaking	90
74	Sculptor	91
75	Full Fathom Five	92
76	Lorelei	94
77	Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbor	95
78	Moonrise	98
79	Frog Autumn	99
80	In Midas' Country	99
81	Incommunicado	100
82	Child's Park Stones	100
83	Owl	101
84	Whiteness I Remember	102
85	Fable of the Rhododendron Stealers	103
86	The Death of Myth-Making	104
87	Green Rock, Winthrop Bay	104
88	The Companionable Ills	105
89	I Want, I Want	106
90	Poems, Potatoes	106
91	The Times Are Tidy	107
	1959
92	The Bull of Bendylaw	108
93	The Eye-mote	109
94	Point Shirley	110
95	Goatsucker	111
96	Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows	111
97	A Winter Ship	112
98	Aftermath	113
99	Two Views of a Cadaver Room	114
100	Suicide off Egg Rock	115
101	The Ravaged Face	115
102	Metaphors	116
103	Electra on Azalea Path	116
104	The Beekeeper's Daughter	118
105	The Hermit at Outermost House	118
106	Man in Black	119
107	Old Ladies' Home	120
108	The Net-Menders	121
109	Magnolia Shoals	121
110	The Sleepers	122
111	Yaddo: The Grand Manor	123
112	Medallion	124
113	The Manor Garden	125
114	Blue Moles	126
115	Dark Wood, Dark Water	127
116	Polly's Tree	128
117	The Colossus	129
118	Private Ground	130
119	Poem for a Birthday
1	Who	131
2	Dark House	132
3	Maenad	133
4	The Beast	134
5	Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond	134
6	Witch Burning	135
7	The Stones	136
120	The Burnt-out Spa	137
121	Mushrooms	139
	1960
122	You're	141
123	The Hanging Man	141
124	Stillborn	142
125	On Deck	142
126	Sleep in the Mojave Desert	143
127	Two Campers in Cloud Country	144
128	Leaving Early	145
129	Love Letter	147
130	Magi	148
131	Candles	148
132	A Life	149
133	Waking in Winter	151
	1961
134	Parliament Hill Fields	152
135	Whitsun	153
136	Zoo Keeper's Wife	154
137	Face Lift	155
138	Morning Song	156
139	Barren Woman	157
140	Heavy Women	158
141	In Plaster	158
142	Tulips	160
143	I Am Vertical	162
144	Insomniac	163
145	Widow	164
146	Stars Over the Dordogne	165
147	The Rival	166
148	Wuthering Heights	167
149	Blackberrying	168
150	Finisterre	169
151	The Surgeon at 2 a.m.	170
152	Last Words	172
153	The Moon and the Yew Tree	172
154	Mirror	173
155	The Babysitters	174
	1962
156	New Year on Dartmoor	176
157	Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices	176
158	Little Fugue	187
159	An Appearance	189
160	Crossing the Water	190
161	Among the Narcissi	190
162	Pheasant	191
163	Elm	192
164	The Rabbit Catcher	193
165	Event	194
166	Apprehensions	195
167	Berck-Plage	196
168	The Other	201
169	Words heard, by accident, over the phone	202
170	Poppies in July	203
171	Burning the Letters	204
172	For a Fatherless Son	205
173	A Birthday Present	206
174	The Detective	208
175	The Courage of Shutting-Up	209
176	The Bee Meeting	211
177	The Arrival of the Bee Box	212
178	Stings	214
179	The Swarm	215
180	Wintering	217
181	A Secret	219
182	The Applicant	221
183	Daddy	222
184	Medusa	224
185	The Jailer	226
186	Lesbos	227
187	Stopped Dead	230
188	Fever 103[degree]	231
189	Amnesiac	232
190	Lyonnesse	233
191	Cut	235
192	By Candlelight	236
193	The Tour	237
194	Ariel	239
195	Poppies in October	240
196	Nick and the Candlestick	240
197	Purdah	242
198	Lady Lazarus	244
199	The Couriers	247
200	Getting There	247
201	The Night Dances	249
202	Gulliver	251
203	Thalidomide	252
204	Letter in November	253
205	Death & Co.	254
206	Years	255
207	The Fearful	256
208	Mary's Song	257
209	Winter Trees	257
210	Brasilia	258
211	Childless Woman	259
212	Eavesdropper	260
	1963
213	Sheep in Fog	262
214	The Munich Mannequins	262
215	Totem	264
216	Child	265
217	Paralytic	266
218	Gigolo	267
219	Mystic	268
220	Kindness	269
221	Words	270
222	Contusion	271
223	Balloons	271
224	Edge	272
	Notes on Poems 1956-1963	275
	The 'Ariel' Poems	295
	Translation	296
	A Concordance with Published Volumes	296
	Juvenilia
	A Selection of Fifty Early Poems
	Bitter Strawberries	299
	Family Reunion	300
	Female Author	301
	April 18	301
	Gold mouths cry	302
	Dirge for a Joker	302
	To Eva Descending the Stair	303
	Cinderella	303
	Jilted	304
	Sonnet: To Eva	304
	Bluebeard	305
	Aquatic Nocturne	305
	Notes to a Neophyte	306
	Metarmorphoses of the Moon	307
	Dialogue En Route	308
	To a Jilted Lover	309
	The Dream	310
	Sonnet: To Time	311
	The Trial of Man	312
	April Aubade	312
	Go get the goodly squab	313
	Trio of Love Songs	313
	Lament	315
	Doomsday	316
	Moonsong at Morning	316
	Doom of Exiles	318
	The Dispossessed	318
	Admonitions	319
	Never try to trick me with a kiss	319
	The Dead	320
	Danse macabre	320
	Circus in Three Rings	321
	Prologue to Spring	322
	Song for a Revolutionary Love	322
	Sonnet to Satan	323
	A Sorcerer Bids Farewell to Seem	324
	Midsummer Mobile	324
	On Looking into the Eyes of a Demon Lover	325
	Insolent storm strikes at the skull	325
	Denouement	326
	Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea	327
	Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light	328
	Terminal	328
	Love Is a Parallax	329
	Aerialist	331
	Morning in the Hospital Solarium	332
	The Princess and the Goblins	333
	Touch-and-Go	335
	Temper of Time	336
	Epitaph in Three Parts	337
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