I did not find this collection particularly enjoyable. It was a massive shame because I'm entirely obsessed with Plath at the minute. I think it's massively less confessional than Ariel. In that sense, I found it a bit uncomfortable. I kind of like when poets confess all their shit!

However, I'm not sure what it was. It just didn't strike me in any way. No poem in particular stood out as amazing. I'm quite disappointed.

Maybe it's because my expectations were too high. After all, Plath is such a renowned poet. But this collection just didn't live up to my hopes. I was looking for that raw, emotional honesty that I found in Ariel, but it wasn't there. I'll probably give it another read at some point, just to see if I missed something.

I was truly anticipating liking this book.

However, when I initiated reading it early in the morning prior to class the other day, I was suddenly bombarded with the lush, descriptive language that Plath employs in these poems.

My drowsy brain was entirely unprepared for such an onslaught.

I persisted in reading it the following day and developed a greater fondness with each successive poem.

I commenced relishing in the opulent language and the manner in which she weaves words together.

It began to evoke memories of Shakespeare, and I started to perceive the influence emerging.

The content calls to mind a darker, more moody iteration of Mary Oliver’s poems, which predominantly center around nature and animals.

I had initially设想 this would be a rapid read, but I will, without a doubt, need to revisit and reread it in order to fully soak up the significance of her words.

I always have the tendency to read Sylvia Plath's works in an overly indulgent manner. I dive into the pages with a gluttonous appetite, as if I can't get enough. I linger there, lost in the beauty and darkness of her words.

I am so engrossed that I forget the potential impact until I finally emerge from the literary trance. By then, I find myself eroded, as if my soul has been hollowed out. I feel an overwhelming sense of tiredness, both physically and emotionally.

Yet, despite this, I can't seem to stay away. I go back and read her poems again and again. I let the concise and enduring verses fill me completely, seeping into every pore of my being. My body weeps at its seams, aching with a pain that is both physical and emotional.

I am left in a state of confusion, unable to decide whether I love her or hate her. I think it is an ineffable combination of both. On one hand, I am drawn to the raw honesty and power of her words. On the other hand, I don't want to be affected so deeply by her. But in the end, I know that I can't resist the allure of Sylvia Plath's poetry.

The Colossus was not only the sole collection of poems published during Sylvia Plath's lifetime but also the title of one of three poems in the volume that address the early loss of her father. In this poem, he is portrayed as a ruined statue that his daughter heroically attempts to preserve but ultimately fails. In "Full Fathom Five," he is the old man of the sea, Neptune, while the speaker, his daughter, is a mermaid choking on air, longing to breathe water. The mermaid imagery recurs in the collection. The third poem is "The Beekeeper's Daughter." Her father was an entomologist, and Plath herself experimented with beekeeping. However, it contains the oppressive line: "My heart under your feet, sister of a stone."

Family relations also feature in poems that deal with the ambivalent experience of pregnancy, such as the poem that opens the collection, "The Manor Garden."

Many of the poems record observations from nature, juxtaposing life and death. For example, "Water Colour of Grandchester Meadows" updates Tennyson's "red in tooth and claw." However, in one instance, the poet's observation of nature is inaccurate. In "The Ghost's Leavetaking," a powerful description of the departure of a dream upon waking, she mentions the "new moon's curve," which is visible in the west just after sunset, not in the east just before dawn. You might think it's picky, but bear with me on this pet peeve. A surprising number of otherwise excellent writers evoke the moon inaccurately.

The language throughout the collection is elevated. I had to look up a word in nearly every poem. Only in one case, the latinate "palustral" in "Frog Autumn," did I feel she was overreaching for an enriched vocabulary. There are also some beautiful neologisms, such as "lapsing" in "The Lorelei" to describe the sound of waves at the shore. Whether set in the U.S. or in England, the seacoast is a recurrent source of inspiration.

It's all too easy to read these poems in the shadow of the author's suicide, as death does indeed haunt many of them. However, had she resisted the urge to end her life, the reader might also notice the will to live that is present. Back in university, long ago, Plath's recently-published posthumous collection, Ariel, was a lodestone for more than one aspiring poetess I knew. Perhaps that's why, at the time, I only read some of her most famous poems, like "Daddy." I'm glad enough time has passed that I can now read and appreciate these.