I think the beauty of poetry has been lost in translation. I really like Sylvia. She is a dear person to me, but unfortunately, I couldn't connect with her poetry. Sylvia's writings are based on her life experiences, and I couldn't find anything in common between myself and her poetry except for the poem about her father, which was very beautiful and I really liked it. I understood this poem because my father has also passed away, and just like Sylvia, I don't have any memories of him.

I don't know. Maybe if I grow up and live more, I will come back to this book and understand it better.

But Sylvia, what a wonderful person she was. I really like her, and I cherish the interviews I read of her. ✨️

Her picture is on the wall next to the desk, and every time I look at it, I have this feeling that I want to be like Sylvia and have my writings be an inheritance that I leave for others.

And finally, I have to say that if your life is close to what Sylvia is talking about, you will definitely enjoy this collection of poetry. Of course, I also bought "At the Bottom of the Month" and I like to read it, but I'm giving it a chance and moving forward.

Sylvia came through, and I was left wondering, like, are you mad??

Her words painted a vivid and disturbing picture. She said, "'And I saw white maggots coil
Thin as pins in the dark bruises
Where his innards bulged as if
He were digesting a mouse.'"

The detail in her description was truly astonishing. It was as if I could see those maggots wriggling in the bruises. The pain and disgust that Sylvia conveyed through her words were palpable. It made me realize that her soul must be tortured. She deserved so much better. I love her poetry, but at the same time, I can't help but demand #justice4sylvia.

Her words have the power to move and震撼 people. They make us face the harsh realities of life and the pain that some people have to endure. Sylvia's poetry is a cry for help, a plea for justice. We must listen to her and do everything we can to make sure that she gets the justice she deserves.

This piece of writing is truly a complex one.

On one hand, it presents a rather bleak and often upsetting picture. The themes and descriptions it contains can be quite disturbing, making it a challenging read at times.

However, what saves it from being completely unreadable is its excellent writing. The author has a remarkable ability to craft words and sentences in a way that draws the reader in, despite the difficult subject matter.

The use of vivid imagery, engaging dialogue, and a well-structured narrative all contribute to making this a piece that, while not always easy to stomach, is still worth reading for its literary merit.

It's a testament to the power of good writing that even when the content is bleak and upsetting, it can still hold our attention and leave a lasting impression.

{Lines from my favorites or favorite lines, with my words within these brackets}:

{Review in reverse order, 100% complete}

Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbour - The mussels, dull blue and conspicuous, hung there. It seemed as if a sly world's hinges had swung shut against me, and all held still. Grass put forth claws, and small mud knobs, nudged from under, displaced their domes like tiny knights doffing their casques. {This description creates a vivid and somewhat eerie scene at the rock harbour.}

The Burnt-Out Spa - I can't tell how long his carcase has foundered under the rubbish of summers and the black-leaved falls. Now little weeds insinuate soft suede tongues between his bones. His armourplate and toppled stones are an esplanade for crickets. I pick and pry like a doctor or archaeologist among the iron entrails, enamel bowls, and the coils and pipes that made him run. {The imagery here is both macabre and fascinating, making the burnt-out spa seem like a strange and forgotten place.}

Poem for a Birthday - This shed's fusty as a mummy's stomach, filled with old tools, handles, and rusty tusks. Let me sit in a flowerpot; the spiders won't notice. Dark House, I am round as an owl and see by my own light. Maenad, time unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun its endless glitter, and I must swallow it all. The Beast, the sun sat in his armpit, and nothing went mouldy. The little invisibles waited on him hand and foot. I've married a cupboard of rubbish and bed in a fish puddle. Down here, the sky is always falling. Witch Burning, a thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit the wax image of myself, a doll's body. Sickness begins here; I am a dartboard for witches. In the month of red leaves, I climb to a bed of fire. It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door, the cellar's belly. They've blown my sparkler out. A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage. What large eyes the dead have! I am intimate with a hairy spirit. Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar. If I am a little one, I can do no harm. If I don't move about, I'll knock nothing over. I'll fly through the candle's mouth like a singeless moth. Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone. The Stones, this is the city where men are mended. I lie on a great anvil. The flat blue sky-circle flew off like the hat of a doll when I fell out of the light. The storerooms are full of hearts. This is the city of spare parts. My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber. Here they can doctor heads or any limb. On Fridays, the little children come to trade their hooks for hands. Dead men leave eyes for others. {This poem is a complex and multi-faceted exploration of various themes, from the self to the supernatural, with vivid and powerful imagery throughout.}

{Review in reverse order, 75% complete}

Blue Moles - By day, only the topsoil heaves. Down there, one is alone. Outsize hands prepare a path, opening the veins and delving for the appendages of beetles, sweetbreads, shards - to be eaten over and over. {The idea of the blue moles and their activities underground is both strange and captivating.}

Ouija - The old god dribbles, in return, his words. The old god, too, writes aureate poetry in tarnished modes, maundering among the wastes, a fair chronicler of every foul declension. Age and ages of prose have uncoiled his talking whirlwind and abated his excessive temper when words, like locusts, drummed the darkening air and left the cobs to rattle, bitten clean. {The description of the old god and the ouija board creates an atmosphere of mystery and the supernatural.}

Snakecharmer - Pipes water green until green waters waver with reedy lengths and necks and undulatings. And as his notes twine green, the green river shapes its images around his songs. {The imagery of the snakecharmer and the green river is beautiful and enchanting.}

The Disquieting Muses - I woke one day to see you, mother, floating above me in bluest air on a green balloon bright with a million flowers and bluebirds that never were. But the little planet bobbed away like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here! And I faced my travelling companions. Day now, night now, at head, side, feet, they stand their vigil in gowns of stone, faces blank as the day I was born, their shadows long in the setting sun that never brightens or goes down. And this is the kingdom you bore me to, mother, mother. But no frown of mine will betray the company I keep. {This poem explores the relationship between the narrator and the mother, as well as the idea of the disquieting muses, with a sense of melancholy and mystery.}

Medallion - By the gate with star and moon worked into the peeled orange wood, the bronze snake lay in the sun inert as a shoelace. Over my hand I hung him. His little vermilion eye ignited with a glassed flame as I turned him in the light. When I split a rock one time, the garnet bits burned like that. Dust dulled his back to ochre, the way sun ruins a trout. Yet his belly kept its fire going under the chainmail, the old jewels smouldering there in each opaque belly-scale: sunset looked at through milk glass. {The description of the bronze snake is detailed and vivid, making it seem almost alive.}

{Review in reverse order, 50% complete}

The Thin People - Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could keep from cutting fat meat out of the side of the generous moon when it set foot nightly in her yard until her knife had pared the moon to a rind of little light. {This is a strange and imaginative image of the old woman and the moon.}

Suicide off Egg Rock - Sun struck the water like a damnation. No pit of shadow to crawl into, and his blood beating the old tattoo I am, I am, I am. The words in his book wormed off the pages. Everything glittered like blank paper. {The description of the suicide and the surrounding environment is both powerful and disturbing.}

Mushrooms - We diet on water, on crumbs of shadow, bland-mannered, asking little or nothing. So many of us! We shall by morning inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door. {The mushrooms are described as having a quiet and unassuming presence, yet they have the potential to take over the earth.}

I Want, I Want - Open-mouthed, the baby god, immense, bald, though baby-headed, cried out for the mother's dug. The dry volcanoes cracked and spit, sand abraded the milkless lip. {The image of the baby god and the dry volcanoes creates a sense of need and desolation.}

The Ghost's Leavetaking - Go, ghost of our mother and father, ghost of us, and ghost of our dreams' children, in those sheets which signify our origin and end, to the cloud-cuckoo land of colour wheels and pristine alphabets and cows that moo and moo as they jump over moons as new as that crisp cusp toward which you voyage now. {The idea of the ghost's leavetaking and the description of the cloud-cuckoo land are both beautiful and otherworldly.}

A Winter Ship - At this wharf, there are no grand landings to speak of. Red and orange barges list and blister, shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy, and apparently indestructible. The sea pulses under a skin of oil. A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole, riding the tide of the wind, steady as wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes, the whole flat harbour anchored in the round of his yellow eye-button. Even our shadows are blue with cold. We wanted to see the sun come up and are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship, bearded and blown, an albatross of frost, relic of tough weather, every winch and stay encased in a glassy pellicle. The sun will diminish it soon enough: each wave-tip glitters like a knife. {The description of the winter ship and the surrounding environment is detailed and evocative, creating a sense of cold and desolation.}

Full Fathom Five - Ages beat like rains on the unbeaten channels of the ocean. I walk dry on your kingdom's border, exiled to no good. Your shelled bed I remember. Father, this thick air is murderous. I would breathe water. {The imagery of the ocean and the idea of being exiled create a sense of longing and isolation.}

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Hardcastle Crags - And the sandman's dust lost lustre under her footsoles. {This is a simple yet effective image of the sandman's dust and the woman's footsoles.}

Faun - No sound but a drunken coot lurching home along river bank. {The description of the drunken coot creates a sense of quiet and solitude.}

Departure - Retrospect shall not soften such penury - sun's brass, the moon's steely patinas, the leaden slag of the world - but always expose the scraggy rock spit shielding the town's blue bay against which the brunt of outer sea beats, is brutal endlessly. {The idea of departure and the description of the harsh environment create a sense of finality and inevitability.}

The Colossus - Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. It would take more than a lightning-stroke to create such a ruin. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel on the blank stones of the landing. {The description of the colossus and the narrator's relationship with it is both mysterious and powerful.}

Lorelei - The massive castle turrets doubling themselves in a glass all stillness. Yet these shapes float up toward me, troubling the face of quiet. From the nadir they rise, their limbs ponderous with richness, hair heavier than sculpted marble. They sing of a world more full and clear than can be. {The imagery of the castle turrets and the singing shapes is both beautiful and haunting.}

Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.

Sylvia Plath's words are truly magical. They have a haunting quality that lingers in the mind long after they are read. Her language is not only beautiful but also deeply profound, capable of evoking a wide range of emotions.

Her words have forever burned into my brain, leaving an indelible mark. I can still recall the first time I read her works, and the impact it had on me was profound.

May you rest in peace, Sylvia Plath. You were a tortured, gorgeous, and sensitive soul. Your struggles and pain are evident in your writing, but so too is your beauty and strength.

Your words will continue to inspire generations of readers to come, and your legacy will live on forever.

The poem "The Burnt-out Spa" presents a vivid and somewhat disturbing scene. The speaker describes themselves as picking and prying like a doctor or archaeologist among the iron entrails, enamel bowls, and the coils and pipes that once made something run.

The Colossus and Other Poems is Sylvia Plath's only self-organized poetry collection. Her other works, such as Ariel, were published posthumously. In this collection, Plath focuses on cadavers like "burnt turkeys," holds a dead snake to observe the maggots in its belly, examines dead moles and bleached crabs, and even envies their life and death. She also gives mushrooms and frogs compelling poetic voices.

These poems explore the ugliness of transition, whether it's between the muddy shorelines of industrial decay and ice-caked waves, between life and death, or between one world and another. The collection is undeniably morbid, but it also shows Plath's evolution as a poet, transitioning to the more raw and personalized lyric poetry of Ariel.

In poems like "The Beekeeper’s Daughter," we see Plath's mastery of craftsmanship, with lush spring imagery and sexual exuberance. However, even in this poem, there is an underlying darkness. In "The Eye-mote," she recounts an incident where a splinter flew into her eye, needling it dark. This experience becomes a metaphor for her poetic method, as she sews her personal depression into the landscapes she描绘s.

The poems in The Colossus echo the major imagery and action found in her novel The Bell Jar. Given Plath's history of attempted and successful suicide, each poem that features a voice compelling the narrator to drown or bury herself cannot be easily dismissed. Plath examines death with a clinical detachment that can be disconcerting. However, we should not view these poems as a mere prelude to her suicide note. Instead, we should reflect on the profound questions she raises, questions that are asked by a first-rate poet whose verse reveals rich layers of meaning with each line and each stark image.

"Prime rib covered in dark chocolate"? "Comes from the darkest crevices of herself"? Shudder...

These kinds of sentiments are what lead to our culture's extreme indifference, and perhaps even resentment, towards poetry. Poetry is not weak or some unnecessary thing that only those with a suicidal-chic mindset can understand. In fact, Plath's poetry is much more than that.

Yes, there is pain and some elements of death in her work. But there is also tranquility, poignancy, and very often, a great deal of humor. Moreover, when it comes to the vividness and distinctiveness of her metaphors, she is truly unrivaled.

If you want to read something contemporary, enjoy the surreal, or are interested in learning about one of the most important poets in the past 50 years, then you should definitely pick up her poetry. You'll discover a world of depth, emotion, and creativity that will surprise and delight you.

"Scaling little ladders with gluepots and pails of Lysol, I crawl like an ant in mourning over the weedy acres of your brow.

This vivid description creates a unique and somewhat eerie image. The use of the words "scaling," "gluepots," and "Lysol" gives a sense of a meticulous and perhaps even obsessive task. The comparison to an ant in mourning adds a touch of sadness and solemnity.

The "weedy acres of your brow" is a powerful metaphor, suggesting that the subject's forehead is filled with chaos or perhaps unruly thoughts. It makes the reader wonder what exactly the narrator is trying to accomplish or what they are mourning.

Overall, this passage earns a 3.5-star rating for its creative use of language and ability to paint a memorable picture in the reader's mind."

Plath is a writer about whom I knew very little beforehand. However, after reading her poetry and witnessing the brilliant way she combines words, she has become the type of poet I truly prefer. I lean towards style and wordsmith poets rather than those who focus on social or political content, or those who engage in literary games by writing difficult poems that seem to be just a random combination of words.

I impulsively bought this collection due to her reputation as a poet, not realizing it was her first published book of poems. It is truly astonishing and almost freaky to me that she could have composed all these poems at the age of 25. Out of the 40 poems in this collection, at least 20 are very good, and the great ones are among the finest I have ever read in terms of original imagery and craftsmanship. It is extremely difficult to select the top 5 when there are so many powerful and outstanding ones. On the other hand, it is easier to mention the few weaker and uneven ones that stand out precisely because of their shortcomings, such as "Sow," "Faun," and "Moonrise."

Selfishly, I am glad that she wrote only one novel and many more poems. Why waste such an abundance of talent for poetry on a simpler and easier form of writing like prose and novels?

I finally had the opportunity to read "The Bell Jar" and I was completely enamored by it. So much so that I promptly borrowed this volume from the library.

Just like all poetry collections, the poems that speak to you, you cherish deeply. And those that don't resonate with you, well, you just kind of shrug and move on.

It is also extremely helpful to have an understanding of when in the poet's life these works were collected. The imagery that appears to be in the spotlight can then be better comprehended. I must admit that I don't know enough about Plath at this point to fully appreciate every single one of these poems.

However, there were several that brought me particular enjoyment. These include "The Eye-mote", "Faun", "Lorelei", "The Ghost’s Leavetaking", and "Spinster". Each of these poems has its own unique charm and beauty that captured my attention and made me want to read them over and over again.

I look forward to delving deeper into Plath's works and continuing to explore the wonderful world of poetry.

Perhaps I shouldn't have attempted to read The Colossus all at once.

The poems within it are simply too rich, too sensual, and too filling. It was akin to attempting to devour a plateful of prime rib that had been smothered in dark chocolate and deep-fried. Delicious, no doubt, but overwhelming.

And then there are all those difficult words! I don't mean difficult in the sense that palustral is hard, as in hard to understand because I'd never before encountered the word. No, I mean hard in the way that a seed or a nut can be hard. Hard on the teeth, hard on the gums and tongue, hard on the throat, the gullet, and, I'm sorry to admit, the bowels. Words that stick, clog, and glutinate inside you; well, inside me, at least. And word pairs as hard and as beautiful as (but far more plentiful than) sapphires. Here are just a few from her poem, Sow:

shrewd secret, pig show, public stare, sunk sty, penny slot, thrifty children, prime flesh, golden crackling, parsley halo, maunching thistle, snout-cruise, feat-foot, belly-bedded, bloat tun, dream-filmed, grisly-bristled, jocular fist, barrel nape, pig hove, lean Lent, earthquaking continent, and (my personal favorite) brobdingnag bulk.

Plath's book is replete with such delectable morsels. (I'll leave it to you to discover the rest.) I'm certain I'm not the first to assert this, but I believe she must be the poetic cousin (or perhaps the test tube spawn) of Flannery O'Conner and Carson McCullers. And, like them, she died at a young age, although in her case, it was by her own hand. I suppose I might contemplate taking my own life if I had all that shard-sharp genius constantly pounding away at my tender cerebellum.