Selected Poems

by Sylvia Plath

This selection of Sylvia Plath's poetry - chosen by Ted Hughes - shows Plath to be a major poet of the 20th century.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, 20th Century, Feminism, School, American

85 pages, Paperback

First published December 25, 1981

About the author

Sylvia 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.

Reviews

[Dream.M · Rating 3 out of 5]

به تقلید از سیلویا پلات:
دیروز در همسایگی ما
مادری مُرد
و دوباره دختری یتیم شد
دخترک سی‌و‌شش ساعت مدام گریه کرد
از پنجره نگاهش ‌می‌کردم
وقتی از درد و ناامیدی
همچون جوجه‌ خارپشتی وحشت زده
در خود پیچید،
چقدر شبیه من بود.
...........

شعرها من رو یاد فروغ فرخزاد می‌انداختن. همان فراز و فرودها ، احساسات روشن و ضعف و قوت ها
...........
بنظر میاد بین نبوغ زنهای نویسنده و خودکشی رابطه ای وجود داره . سیلویا پلات، ویرجینیا وولف، غزاله علیزاده....
مرگی خودخواسته و در کمال آسودگی، خیلی هوس انگیز و جذابه

[Szplug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely have the tortuous dimensions of life lived against the grain of existence been so wittily, so achingly, so stingingly and yet economically sewn together, and with lyrical needles threaded to an anomic precision and harrowing spartanism—alternately languid and feral—and yet fully alive and alight in the face of despair and darkness. It's as if the viscous attar of sexuality and relationships, gender bruises, mental states and discomfits and deteriorations, temporal and spatial stretching and crushing, the particulate radioactivity of pain and pleasure and their twinned allure to the sly and greasy promises of death, were all cornered, captured, and compressed within fragments of sentence and phrase, and then painted and lacquered such that they stood, apart but connected, as beads and gewgaws of sparkling, sometimes severe, colour and form. Hurt in short hops. Pain bled thin and patched with bows and sequins. Primal emotions as cutlets, or cubed and spaced like the stars. Hardly an easy or benignant experience, and one that pushes you away more readily than admits you within—but nonetheless starkly beautiful in sudden stabs or lathed poses and palpably resonant to those accustomed to being cut and/or doing the cutting.

One thing: the Faber and Faber edition that I own does not contain the sublimely taut Lady Lazarus, one of her most effective and affective poems—but it's made up for with having introduced me to the likes of Suicide off Egg Rock, Insomniac, Finisterre and Edge.

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.

I attempted to space these poems out and still tore through them in three days. Plath's words speak to my soul. She writes like she is brushing against an open wound with her pen and I am helpless to feel anything but an echo of this ache reverberate inside me.

My favourites include:
Tulips
Insomniac
Wuthering Heights
Finisterre
Mirror
Poppies in July
A Birthday Present
Ariel

[Jimena · Rating 5 out of 5]

La poesía de Sylvia Plath siempre me resulta avasalladora, tiene una pluma turbulenta, poderosa y profundamente sentida. Su obra entera está atravesada por un tema común, o bien una dolencia perpetua y aún así cada poema consigue ser sorprendentemente único y aunque pueda ser repetitiva la angustia, nunca lo es su forma de expresarla.

Me conmueve, me moviliza, me hace sentir comprendida como si hubiese conseguido capturar una desolación que siempre tuve arraigada en mí pero que nunca conseguí articular y que nunca vi tan claramente reflejada como cuando la leí. Por esto me será, por siempre, admirada y querida.

Mis poemas favoritos de esta colección: a birthday gift y daddy.

[Jack Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite poets of all time! I fall in love with Sylvia Plath's poetry even more every time I re-read it. My personal favourites in this particular edition include The Night Shift, The Cut, Daddy, and Babysitters :)

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggle to understand a lot of poetry and some of these were very difficult to get my head round, the flow of the poems are different each time and it is tough to adapt between each of them

There were some I understood and they were great, my favourite being "Mirror" the opening two lines are the best in this collection...

"I am silver and exact, I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately"

I don't think I've ever heard a better decryption of a mirror.

As for others in the collection, they are very descriptive, using lots of words above me. Others are dark, references to previous suicide attempts are made, "A birthday present" has to be the darkest, the title tricks you into thinking "surely this will be a happy one"... Nope, not one bit.

An interesting collection I'm glad I have tried.

[Parnian.K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stillborn
.
These poems do not live; it’s a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn’t for any lack of mother-love.
.
O I cannot understand what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won’t fill and the heart won’t start.
.
They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air —
It would be better if they were alive, and that’s what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare, and do not speak for her.
.
-page 151
.
.
ترجمه‌ها به طرز تکان‌دهنده‌ای ضعیف، غیرقابل درک و گاه‌به
گاه حتی نادرست بودن. اشتباه‌های فاحش ها! یعنی فکر کنم مترجم حتی از خودش نپرسیده بود که خب الان این چیزی که نوشتم اصلاً معنایی می‌ده در فارسی یا همینطور دارم کلمه به کلمه ترجمه می‌کنم. بعد اصلاً متوجه نمی‌شدم با چه نوع ترجمه‌ای روبه‌روام. یه جاهایی ترجمه‌ی تحت‌الفظی بود کاملاً؛ یه جاهایی یه دفعه ترجمه‌ی آزاد می‌شد، ولی همونم بی‌معنی و غیرقابل درک. آش شلم‌شوربایی بود اصلاً. اسم اسدالله امرایی رو زیاد شنیده بودم و فکر می‌کردم مترجم خوبی باشه؛ خیلی شگفت‌زده شدم از این ترجمه‌ها. تنها خوبیش این بود که اگه معنی کلمه‌ای رو نمی‌دونستم، می‌تونستم به ترجمه‌ی روبه‌روش نگاه کنم و کلمه رو پیدا کنم. یعنی بیشتر مثل دیکشنری واسم کار کرد تا ترجمه!
.
این اولین مجموعه‌ی‌ شعر انگلیسی بود که خوندم؛ خیلی هم خوندنش سخت بود واسم و خیلی جاها رو هم نفهمیدم، ولی در کل تجربه‌ی جالبی بود و خوشحالم که جرأت کردم بالاخره شعر انگلیسی بخونم.
.
خیلی زیاد منو یاد فروغ می‌نداختن یه سری تصاویر یا کلاً جهان‌بینی‌اش توی خیلی از شعرها.
.
.
یک ستاره به خاطر ترجمه‌ست، وگرنه شعرهای زیبایی توی‌ کتاب بود و لذت بردم.

[Antonio Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunos versos son espectaculares, aunque diría que me han llegado más las imágenes que los poemas, en sí me han parecido como grandes ideas sin terminar de expresar, tal vez sea por una mala traducción, porque la edición es bilingüe y la versión en castellano destroza el ritmo que parece tener en inglés, han optado por una traducción literal que a veces rompe la estructura original.

Poemas muy personales, es decir, tienen un fuerte componente emocional personal, creo que hay que conocer sus circunstancias vitales para apreciar el significado o el simbolismo de algunas imágenes, muy sufridas, nada reconfortante. Sin más referencias, puede parecer muy críptica.

Desde luego buscaré otras versiones porque siento que me he perdido mucho

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This might sound blasphemous to some, but I prefer Ted Hughes's poetry to hers.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I’m sad, I read Sylvia Plath’s poetry in order to feel infinitely worse and then eventually, a little bit better. So, buckle up for all of my sad girl thoughts on my favourite poems from this collection:

The “particular girl” of the opening poem, 'Spinster', contemplates her inability to accept the things she cannot control. As bird song becomes “irregular babel” and leaves become no more than “litter” and “disarray”, the girl yearns for a winter as “exact as a snowflake.” The chaos of nature, which is usually so beautiful, becomes an obstacle to her happiness.

About half-way through the collection comes 'Mirror', another one of my favourites. As the name might suggest, this poem is told from the perspective of a personified mirror. It speaks with an innocent and child-like tone which contrasts the deep sense of melancholy that characterises the woman who looks into it. As the mirror says, “I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.” The power of Plath’s words mean that this goes beyond being about just image and instead, becomes about identity. To paraphrase one of my favourite lines, it’s about a search for what we really are.

I’m familiar with the second last poem, 'Words', because it’s one of my favourites from Ariel. To me, it perfectly articulates the anxiety that comes from putting something out into the world. Whether its poetry, art, feelings or words – once something is created and shared, it can become hard to maintain control over. In this poem, the speaker’s words travel “off from the centre like horses” and return to her “dry and riderless” after the passage of time. This definitely speaks to the limits of creation, but I think it also speaks to its power. A riderless horse is one that is wild and free, and words that are dry are perhaps no longer welling with tears. Maybe they’re stronger. If, as the last line suggests, we are truly governed by the stars of fate then I find comfort knowing that we can still create, say and feel things that cause a little bit of chaos.

Before I finish, I’ll add that the order of Selected Poems feels scattered because the poems have been drawn from her other collections then edited together in chronological order. As a result, the collection lacks the neat progression of her other works. However, I’ve returned to this collection today because its messy, and so am I. 4 stars.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

30 Books in 30 Days / Book #22
4.5*

[G. Munckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me deslumbra la sensibilidad de Plath, cómo la transmite en sus poemas. La elección de sus palabras, a veces inesperadas pero siempre las más precisas. La forma en que quiebra sus versos o sus estrofas. La nitidez de sus imágenes y el trasfondo que insinúan. Su melancolía pero también su furia, su resignación pero también su angustia. Pero es una sensibilidad peligrosa: un simple ramo de flores puede turbarla. “Los tulipanes son demasiado rojos, para empezar, lastiman”. Porque ese color resquebraja la calma tan ansiada, transforma toda su habitación, todo su día, sus esperanzas. “No quería flores, sólo quería / Yacer con las palmas de las manos hacia arriba y estar completamente vacía. / Cuánta libertad, no te imaginas cuánta / La tranquilidad es tan grande que te aturde”. Es una sensibilidad que atenta contra ella misma: lo cotidiano de pronto se llena de aristas, los seres queridos de pronto son hirientes, son cicatrices o están demasiado lejos.

Además, en la traducción de Raquel Lanseros hay equilibrio entre el significado literal y el sentido poético, consigue transmitir eso que Plath plasma en sus versos y sus imágenes.

Es un libro tan hermoso como puede serlo una herida. Sé que voy a volver a él, sé que algunos de sus poemas van a acompañarme siempre, y sé que voy a leer más de Plath.

[Sara Kamjou · Rating 2 out of 5]

شعرهای توصیفی واقعا قوی‌ای بود ولی سلیقه‌ی من نبود و چندان ارتباط برقرار نکردم. این شعرها رو بیشتر ازش دوست داشتم: کلاغی سیاه در هوای بارانی، سوزاندن نامه‌ها، گوسفندان در مه.

[maddie ʚ♡ɞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

sylvia plath's poems make so much more sense if you read them out loud

[Miss Ravi · Rating 3 out of 5]

تک‌گویی در ساعت سه صبح

خیال
از هر بافه‌ای، بهتر شکاف می‌خورد
و خشم راه می‌گشاید
خون زنده می‌دود، خیس می‌کند
کاناپه، قالی و کف اتاق را
و سالنامه با نقش مار
مصونیت تو را تضمین می‌کند
که یک میلیون از این شهرم سبز دوری
بهتر آن که بی‌صدا بنشینی، خیالبافی کنی
زیر روشنایی ستارگان
با نگاهی خیره و مات
با نفرینی که روزگار را تیره می‌کند.
بدرودها به زبان آمده
قطارها رفته‌اند
و من با مضحکه‌ای سخت
سرنگون شده
از اریکه پادشاهی‌ام.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A selection of Sylvia Plath's ingenious poetry chosen by Ted Hughes.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not usually a poetry person but I adore Plath and have been wanting to read her poems for a while. Man, what an experience! So turbulent, so powerful and heartfelt. You can really see and feel her emotional turmoil. I enjoyed The Stones, Face Lift, Tulips, Finisterre, Mirror and Edge but my favourites were Daddy and A Birthday Present, with the latter completely kicking me in the gut. A brilliant set of poems.

[Iselin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do."

[camilavllr · Rating 4 out of 5]

como dice lana: 24/7 sylvia plath.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a huge fan of reading poetry, but this was very nice

[Generic AF · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is too smart for me by far. Can't relate to the poems, it just feel like bunch of piled up words to me. But I liked Mirror. 😄

[Miguel Santamaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color. The streetlight
Splits through the rat’s-tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the artic,”

[Yevheniia Lysianska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can clearly see who Lana del Rey took inspiration from when writing her lyrics (adore Lana, which automatically means I had to read this). The experience of diving through the mind of someone deeply depressed and suicidal was a bit hard - some poems were so heavy and disturbing that I couldn’t relate to anything.

My favorite ones are:

"Tulips" written during her hospital recovery
"Mirror" - a plain one about self-perception and aging
"Babysitters"
"You're"

Overall, I can’t deny Sylvia’s genius - her ability to capture raw emotion and turn pain into art is something unique.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I divide poetry (and indeed much of literature) into three categories:

1. The brilliant. The stuff that was written for you. The stuff where the author went inside your head and saw everything you felt, thought, loved, believed and then wrote it down in a way that was so much better than you could ever have imagined, and yet it was perfect. Perfect.

2. The good. The stuff that is interesting or thought-provoking or well done or beautiful, but doesn't really speak to you. A subset of this category includes the stuff that describes things differently to the way you personally experienced it, but which is still beautiful/interesting/thought-provoking/well done. But mostly beautiful.

3. Everything else.

I don't think any of Plath's poetry fitted into my first category - maybe there was the odd line here and there, but nothing that stood out. There were a few lines (for example the last two of Maudlin, quoted below, a few bits from Face Lift) and a few whole poems (The Babysitters, Night Shift) which belonged to the second category. The other poems all go into the third category.


I'm not sure that I really have anything meaningful to say about Sylvia Plath, but dang it I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway. I felt like her poems were shutting me out, like those gold Yves Klein paintings. I want poems that are like blue Yves Klein paintings, that suck you in and distort your soul and break holes in your universe all at the same time. Anyway. I have a great deal of difficulty identifying with people who are depressed much of the time, who complain about how hard it is to be a woman (or anything else), who write poems about death and suicide and plastic surgery. These days we call that 'emo', people, and we use it as an insult. This is wrong of me, I know. I'm working on it. Also I know it's a huge oversimplification.

It's just that I have an incorrigibly buoyant disposition: it takes quite a lot to get me depressed. And so I find it hard to understand what she feels like. On the other hand it means I'll never write her off, because if I was just born happy, without anything particular happening in my life to make me so, why shouldn't other people just be born sad? It's the way the brain is wired, and brains work in mysterious ways.

But there are so many authors out there who can make me truly empathise with something without me even having to try, just because they write so well. Plath herself did it, I think, with The Bell Jar (but I actually was kind of depressed when I read it, so that could be why). So this brings me to admit that I am lazy, and I can't be bothered sitting around all day trying to empathise with her poems. I got stuff to do! Today I realised that I've half-forgotten how to factorise, for goodness' sake! I don't have time for this! Which should be irrelevant, because most of the time thinking about books is effortless and enjoyable and I do it whether I have time or not, but with Plath it's laboured and I really just don't want to. I feel like it shouldn't be an effort.

The final point is that I don't read much poetry, because it all seems to end up like Plath to me: a disappointment. But maybe I just need more practice. So the way I see it there are three possibilities here: a) I've missed something b) I'm just not trying hard enough or c) Plath is just not for me (there's always the possibility of a d) she's just not that good, but I don't believe that).

Which leaves me to emphasise that THIS IS NOT MY FINAL WORD. I am studying this poetry sometime this semester which is why I'm reading it in the first place, and so my opinions will almost certainly change when someone tells me what to think. Nah, but sometimes I just need a nudge that makes me look at something from a slightly different angle, and suddenly it's beautiful and I love it. Let's hope that happens with Plath.

_____________________________

So I was trundling along happily with Plath, until I reached this poem. What in hell does it mean? (I'm not going to google it... yet).

Maudlin

Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag
In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin
Gibbets with her curse the moon's man,
Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg:

Hatched with a claret hogshead to swig
He kings it, navel-knit to no groan,
But at the price of a pin-stitched skin
Fish-tailed girls purchase each white leg.

[tee]

magnificent book but i lost my pdf months ago when my dad took my laptop. gone but not forgotten, we will meet again.

[chad chrysanthemum · Rating 4 out of 5]

#100

I'm not reviewing so much this poetry collection as Plath's poetry as a whole - this is merely the collections that I own. I really, really loved The Bell Jar and was excited to read more of Plath's work. Some of the poems in this collections are absolute masterpieces; I thought 'Suicide off Egg Rock', 'Tulips', 'Insomiac', 'Daddy', and 'Cut' were truly magnificent poems. However, I had to wade through a lot of poems that I did not understand on any level to get to them. Take, 'Maudlin', as an example. The first stanza reads:

Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag
In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin
Gibbets with her curse the moon's man,
Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg

I assumed I just didn't understand it or was missing some context, and was shocked to find that the one article that looked at it began, "Because of its apparent difficulty, this poem has received little critical attention or attempted explication." To me, that suggests that nobody knows what the hell this poem is on about! Honestly, the weirdness of some of these poems coupled with the lack of rhyme scheme can give them the feeling that they were generated with a poem-writing AI. The thing is, despite all of the weirdo poems in here, I'm still excited to own this collection and would recommend Plath as a brilliant poet. There's a lot of poems in a collection, so as long as some of them are ground-breaking and send a little shiver down my spine, I'm happy. I mean, the first two lines of 'Cut' alone are enough to convince me that she's a genius:

What a thrill -
My thumb instead of an onion.

When I read 'Daddy', I thought it was so brilliant I immediately made my friend read it - it's like it was so good I wanted her to experience it too, just to check it was real. That last line, "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through." is just the absolute perfect ending to a complex, dark, clever poem. I have to admit, I'm sometimes uncomfortable with her comparison of her suffering to the holocaust, and certainly there are poems that would never get published today. But I can hold that part of me separate for a moment while I read 'Mad Girl's Love Song' or 'Lady Lazarus' (neither of which, tragically, is in this collection). Truly, I think 'Lady Lazarus' is her best, and the dark comedy and dark imagery make the rebirth of the final two stanzas all the more powerful.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

For poetry that is beautiful, complex, dark and funny, please - I entreat you - read Plath.

[Desirée JD · Rating 4 out of 5]

En esta antología se nos muestra a una Silvia Plath desgarradora, insegura y sentimental. No he visto poemas más profundos y que lleguen tanto al sentimiento humano como los de Sílvia Plath y aunque reconozco que me gusta más su prosa, sus poemas son un regalo para todos los apasionados de la poesía. Además, para los que como yo nos estamos iniciando en el género, se puede decir que son un referente a los que acudir para seguir absorbiendo y aprendiendo. Muy recomendable.

[امیرمحمد حیدری · Rating 1 out of 5]

منکر مطلوبیت اشعارش نیستم، اما اشعار او برای زیست گفتمانی و انعکاس زادگاه و محل زندگی‌اش است، نه برای من. پس حرجی برای ارتباط‌برقرارنکردنم با اشعارش نیست.

[Arianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

NOBEL JA! rip sylvia plath

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic selection of Plath's work, encompassing all of her published collections. Beautiful, dark, and startling.