adindasr26's review against another edition
3.0
Ever since I'd read The Bell Jar, I've been wanting to explore Plath's other works. Sadly, this has been such a hard read for me. English is not my first language so I had difficulties trying to understand most of the poems.
tallulahk's review against another edition
4.0
The writing is stunning and super lyrical; I feel like there's all these layers to the text that I can't understand yet but it's still amazing to read, just for how Plath uses language to convey this incredible body of meaning. It's written in a very personal way, like an inside joke but with ideas and the time period she lived in and her own history. So many of these I feel like there's an explanation or a subtext we're supposed to get that I'm just like not getting, but still like reading them. favorite poems this time around: lorelei, suicide at egg rock, the ghost's leavetaking, the stones
"what i want back is what I was/Before the bed, before the knife,/(...)/Horses fluent in the wind,/A place, a time gone out of mind."
"i dream that i am oedipus" lol
"sun struck the water like a damnation./(...)/And his blood beating the old tattoo/I am, I am, I am."
"Everything glittered like blank paper."
"Dry-eyed, the inveterate patriarch/Raised his men of skin and bone,/Barbs on the crown of gilded wire,/Thorns on the bloody rose-stem."
"This is the kingdom of the fading apparition" it's just so good
"faces blank as the day I was born"
4/5
"what i want back is what I was/Before the bed, before the knife,/(...)/Horses fluent in the wind,/A place, a time gone out of mind."
"i dream that i am oedipus" lol
"sun struck the water like a damnation./(...)/And his blood beating the old tattoo/I am, I am, I am."
"Everything glittered like blank paper."
"Dry-eyed, the inveterate patriarch/Raised his men of skin and bone,/Barbs on the crown of gilded wire,/Thorns on the bloody rose-stem."
"This is the kingdom of the fading apparition" it's just so good
"faces blank as the day I was born"
4/5
malbarh1's review against another edition
5.0
PLOT: n/a
CHARACTERS: n/a
WRITING STYLE: 5/5
ENJOYMENT: 4.5/5
FINAL RATING 4.75/5
I've never read poetry so expressive and soul-bearing. plath breaks what i thought were poetry 'rules' in ways that i never would have considered plausible or insightful. i docked half a point in the enjoyment category because i think i would have had a better time with it had i not read it entirely in one sitting.
CHARACTERS: n/a
WRITING STYLE: 5/5
ENJOYMENT: 4.5/5
FINAL RATING 4.75/5
I've never read poetry so expressive and soul-bearing. plath breaks what i thought were poetry 'rules' in ways that i never would have considered plausible or insightful. i docked half a point in the enjoyment category because i think i would have had a better time with it had i not read it entirely in one sitting.
kavyajanani's review
5.0
I don't even know where to begin. I absolutely have no words for this striking masterpiece. I know that Plath's Ariel is the most phenomenal work of hers. But, I kept it aside and picked this one, since it was her debut collection and it was also published when she was alive. Since I was reading The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and delving deep into this incredibly creative woman's tragic life, I structured a process to read this collection.
There are 40 poems in this book. I read each poem twice along with their analysis (if articles were available online). It's really tough to understand Plath's poems, if you don't read their analyses. After completing 20 poems, I went back to the first page and started reading my favourite ones again. Then, I repeated the process for the rest of the 20 poems. And then, I read all my favourite poems from the beginning. I also noted down my favourites. Out of the 40 poems, 26 won my heart.
Here I have listed out top 10 poems from this beautiful book:
1. The Disquieting Muses
2. Medallion
3. Two Views of a Cadaver Room
4. Lorelei
5. The Ghost's Leavetaking
6. The Eye-mote
7. The Colossus
8. Aftermath
9. The Stones
10. Moonrise
Additional: Hardcastle Crags, Spinster, The Burnt-out Spa
I highly recommend this book to each and every true-blue poetry enthusiast.
There are 40 poems in this book. I read each poem twice along with their analysis (if articles were available online). It's really tough to understand Plath's poems, if you don't read their analyses. After completing 20 poems, I went back to the first page and started reading my favourite ones again. Then, I repeated the process for the rest of the 20 poems. And then, I read all my favourite poems from the beginning. I also noted down my favourites. Out of the 40 poems, 26 won my heart.
Here I have listed out top 10 poems from this beautiful book:
1. The Disquieting Muses
2. Medallion
3. Two Views of a Cadaver Room
4. Lorelei
5. The Ghost's Leavetaking
6. The Eye-mote
7. The Colossus
8. Aftermath
9. The Stones
10. Moonrise
Additional: Hardcastle Crags, Spinster, The Burnt-out Spa
I highly recommend this book to each and every true-blue poetry enthusiast.
mollyisff's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
ashleygs's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
4.5
Plath manages to take ordinary scenery and events and pack them with detailed imagery to make them either haunting or devastatingly sad in a beautiful kind of way. The Eye-mote, Lorelei, and Spinster stood out most to me. I can see myself coming back to those three, in particular (& I’m not usually a poetry person).