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Crossing the Water
Crossing the Water and Winter Trees contain the poems written during the exceptionally creative period of the last years of Sylvia Plath’s life. Published posthumously in 1971, they add a startling counterpoint to Ariel, the volume that made her reputation. Readers will recognise some of her most celebrated poems – ‘Childless Woman’, ‘Mirror’, ‘Insomniac’ – while discovering those still overlooked, including her radio play Three Women. These two extraordinary volumes find their place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Sylvia Plath
219 books27.9k followersSylvia 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 275 reviews
August 16, 2013
I cannot put my finger on the source of the magic Plath works on me. When I read her poems it's as if a sister has come and taken my hand in the darkness. She cannot make one wrong step, like a beloved elder she is always clever and wise. I can't criticise; I'm an adoring fan.
Yet.
I read aloud and I cannot get music. And here is an image that does not leap to life, and here is something dated. Plath is not perfect, I can see that now, so I can see where she is strong: in her fearlessness in mining the depths, in her glacial clarity, in her sharp wit and tender wisdom.
She writes so much about women: her own experience as a woman, of the female body, of female roles. Her work is of its time in that - it's a marker hinting how much (or little) progress feminism has made, how much it has changed. Her anxiety about ageing is unbearably poignant in Mirror.
Elsewhere, she reaches a mystical tone, a voice intoning a rite, ringing the bones. She has a feeling for the shadow cast over us by death. Stone and water, plants and the body are her elements. She is ceremonial. Yet sisterly always, intimate. Perhaps that's the magic...
Yet.
I read aloud and I cannot get music. And here is an image that does not leap to life, and here is something dated. Plath is not perfect, I can see that now, so I can see where she is strong: in her fearlessness in mining the depths, in her glacial clarity, in her sharp wit and tender wisdom.
She writes so much about women: her own experience as a woman, of the female body, of female roles. Her work is of its time in that - it's a marker hinting how much (or little) progress feminism has made, how much it has changed. Her anxiety about ageing is unbearably poignant in Mirror.
Elsewhere, she reaches a mystical tone, a voice intoning a rite, ringing the bones. She has a feeling for the shadow cast over us by death. Stone and water, plants and the body are her elements. She is ceremonial. Yet sisterly always, intimate. Perhaps that's the magic...
September 12, 2020
I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality—
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was
Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints.
I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold.
I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer.
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior!
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist.
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages.
— — —
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.
Oh 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.
January 16, 2016
"PAPOILAS EM JULHO
Pequenas papoilas, pequenas chamas infernais,
sois inofensivas?
Estremeceis. Não posso tocar-vos.
Ponho as minhas mãos por entre as chamas. Mas nada
queima.
E fico exausta quando vos vejo
estremecer assim, pregueadas e rubras como a pele da
boca.
Uma boca há pouco ensanguentada.
Pequenas orlas de sangue!
Há nela um fumo que não consigo tocar.
Onde está o vosso ópio, as vossas cápsulas nauseabundas?
Se eu pudesse esvair-me em sangue ou dormir!...
Se a minha boca conseguisse desposar uma tal ferida!
Ou os vossos licores me penetrassem, nesta cápsula de
vidro,
trazendo-me a acalmia e o silêncio.
Mas sem cor. Sem nenhuma cor."
(Georgia O'Keeffe)
Pequenas papoilas, pequenas chamas infernais,
sois inofensivas?
Estremeceis. Não posso tocar-vos.
Ponho as minhas mãos por entre as chamas. Mas nada
queima.
E fico exausta quando vos vejo
estremecer assim, pregueadas e rubras como a pele da
boca.
Uma boca há pouco ensanguentada.
Pequenas orlas de sangue!
Há nela um fumo que não consigo tocar.
Onde está o vosso ópio, as vossas cápsulas nauseabundas?
Se eu pudesse esvair-me em sangue ou dormir!...
Se a minha boca conseguisse desposar uma tal ferida!
Ou os vossos licores me penetrassem, nesta cápsula de
vidro,
trazendo-me a acalmia e o silêncio.
Mas sem cor. Sem nenhuma cor."
(Georgia O'Keeffe)
September 8, 2011
Plath's poems in this beautiful and haunting collection are akin to the sensation of gripping an ice cube in the palm of your hand. Painful and raw, Plath deals in what most people cannot accept or sit with: the passing of seasons, the sharp edges of living, the threadbare fragility of life. The objects of her poems--a barrette, a candle, a mirror--are beautiful because they are temporary, and because they are temporary they are also painful.
My favorite poems of this collection are "Insomniac,""The Babysitters," "Candles," "Mirror," and "Who."
Her language, as always, inspires me:
"Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness/ In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
"October's the month for storage."
"The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry/Now they light me up like an electric bulb/For weeks I can remember nothing at all."
"They are the last romantics, these candles:/Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers/"
"So we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted--/A gallery of creaking porches and still interiors/Stopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing/But ten years dead."
"On this bald hill the new year hones its edge/Faceless and pale as china"
"The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper/Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars/Letting in the light, peephole after peephole"
A must read for all lovers of poetry and Plath and beauty, "Crossing the Waters" is every bit as powerful (if not more so) than "Colossus" or "Ariel."
My favorite poems of this collection are "Insomniac,""The Babysitters," "Candles," "Mirror," and "Who."
Her language, as always, inspires me:
"Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness/ In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
"October's the month for storage."
"The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry/Now they light me up like an electric bulb/For weeks I can remember nothing at all."
"They are the last romantics, these candles:/Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers/"
"So we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted--/A gallery of creaking porches and still interiors/Stopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing/But ten years dead."
"On this bald hill the new year hones its edge/Faceless and pale as china"
"The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper/Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars/Letting in the light, peephole after peephole"
A must read for all lovers of poetry and Plath and beauty, "Crossing the Waters" is every bit as powerful (if not more so) than "Colossus" or "Ariel."
January 6, 2018
"Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls."
Crossing the Water
Some: the most beautiful, utterly moving, prose.
Others: lackluster, mediocre, bland.
"Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack."
Parliament Hill Fields
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls."
Crossing the Water
Some: the most beautiful, utterly moving, prose.
Others: lackluster, mediocre, bland.
"Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack."
Parliament Hill Fields
May 12, 2020
“Shawled in blond hair and the salt,
Scrim of a sea breeze.”
I turned to Sylvia Plath for comfort before and after my most recent surgery. I got this collection from the American Book Center in Amsterdam last spring, so I was excited to finally pick it up. I also read it around Earth Day because of its nature/water imagery and in April for poetry month.
It’s not my favorite Plath collection, but I definitely felt some of the poems and appreciated the artistic chances she took here.
Scrim of a sea breeze.”
I turned to Sylvia Plath for comfort before and after my most recent surgery. I got this collection from the American Book Center in Amsterdam last spring, so I was excited to finally pick it up. I also read it around Earth Day because of its nature/water imagery and in April for poetry month.
It’s not my favorite Plath collection, but I definitely felt some of the poems and appreciated the artistic chances she took here.
September 27, 2024
"I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!" (Last Words).
This morning went awry, but reading Plath in a park, while tiny dogs promenaded by, was just what I needed to reset. Love her words forever and ever.
"I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here" (Two Campers In Cloud Country).
I resonate with Plath's obsession with illumination: recurring stars and moon, evening's outline of lit houses. Over and over, blue, white, and black. The soul. The sea.
This morning went awry, but reading Plath in a park, while tiny dogs promenaded by, was just what I needed to reset. Love her words forever and ever.
"I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here" (Two Campers In Cloud Country).
I resonate with Plath's obsession with illumination: recurring stars and moon, evening's outline of lit houses. Over and over, blue, white, and black. The soul. The sea.
June 8, 2022
When you are depressed everything looks pale or unwanted.
October 30, 2023
did not expect to see a slur on the literal first page of this book 😄
mirror- "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
mirror- "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
January 28, 2024
“it is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little.”
i read this while painting my nails (black) which is what sylvia would have wanted i think.
favorites: love letter, two campers in cloud country, who, witch burning <3
i read this while painting my nails (black) which is what sylvia would have wanted i think.
favorites: love letter, two campers in cloud country, who, witch burning <3
December 23, 2022
My favourite thing about Crossing the Water is that a different poem stands out to me every time I read through the collection. This time, it was ‘Insomniac’ that nestled its way into my heart.
The imagery of this poem is wonderfully striking and oh so relatable to anyone who has sat wide awake at 3am with a mind plagued by thoughts of the past. I love the way the speaker describes sleeplessness as something that stretches “it’s fine, irritating sand in all directions.” This carefully articulates the unbearable restless that comes with insomnia and the way its both impossible to get rid of and impossible to ignore. I also love the way Plath describes the origins of her speaker’s sleeplessness so much that I’m going to copy the whole stanza below:
“Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments-the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces of tall stalks, alternatively stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy roses that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars”
Here, Plath skilfully comments on the way that sleepless nights often make the mind a slave to memories we’d rather forget. I particularly love the word “jostle” in this stanza. It’s like the memories are pushing and elbowing each other in an attempt to take centre stage in the speaker’s mind. I could easily talk about this poem all day, but I’ll skip to the end. Plath writes: “everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank, are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.” Not even daybreak can bring the speaker relief, because it’s simply forced them to swap one monotony for another.
By this stage, you may be able to guess that this poem, and indeed the whole Crossing the Water collection, is unlikely to leave you with any feelings of joy or happiness or hope. However, it does speak to extremely complex feelings that are often felt, but hardly ever described. For that reason, I think this a pretty powerful collection. I’ve read it a hundred times and I’ll probably read it a hundred more.
Anyways, I really should be sleeping instead of writing this review. 5 stars.
The imagery of this poem is wonderfully striking and oh so relatable to anyone who has sat wide awake at 3am with a mind plagued by thoughts of the past. I love the way the speaker describes sleeplessness as something that stretches “it’s fine, irritating sand in all directions.” This carefully articulates the unbearable restless that comes with insomnia and the way its both impossible to get rid of and impossible to ignore. I also love the way Plath describes the origins of her speaker’s sleeplessness so much that I’m going to copy the whole stanza below:
“Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments-the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces of tall stalks, alternatively stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy roses that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars”
Here, Plath skilfully comments on the way that sleepless nights often make the mind a slave to memories we’d rather forget. I particularly love the word “jostle” in this stanza. It’s like the memories are pushing and elbowing each other in an attempt to take centre stage in the speaker’s mind. I could easily talk about this poem all day, but I’ll skip to the end. Plath writes: “everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank, are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.” Not even daybreak can bring the speaker relief, because it’s simply forced them to swap one monotony for another.
By this stage, you may be able to guess that this poem, and indeed the whole Crossing the Water collection, is unlikely to leave you with any feelings of joy or happiness or hope. However, it does speak to extremely complex feelings that are often felt, but hardly ever described. For that reason, I think this a pretty powerful collection. I’ve read it a hundred times and I’ll probably read it a hundred more.
Anyways, I really should be sleeping instead of writing this review. 5 stars.
March 18, 2021
While I often have no clue, or only a faint idea, of what Plath is talking about in some of her poems (and frequently need to pause to look up certain words), her lyricism and rhythm are so striking. Her poems beg to be spoken aloud - as poetry is meant to be read - and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so. The flow of each poem can be unpredictable, making them even more interesting to read out loud. I sometimes would find that the way I said a particular phrase didn’t sound right and would read it again until it did. This collection of poems, published posthumously by Ted Hughes, is dark, moody, and often morbid. She has a beautiful way of turning common objects on their heads and describing them in unique ways, lending her poems to multiple re-readings.
February 9, 2019
What a truly wonderful read. I don’t say this lightly but Plath was a true talent, her work is simply amazing. I picked up her poetry on a whim and have spent the last month rereading and mulling over her words. Her words could make a cool summer breeze feel like a cyclone. Everything she says hits with a huge BOOM, she has an absolute way with words that honestly took my breath away.
I laughed, I cried and felt like I shared every moment with Sylvia- from her writing about her cheating husband to her hospitalizations.
Some of my favorites included, Mirror, Crossing the Water and I am Vertical.
I laughed, I cried and felt like I shared every moment with Sylvia- from her writing about her cheating husband to her hospitalizations.
Some of my favorites included, Mirror, Crossing the Water and I am Vertical.
June 14, 2017
I must confess, I always thought that, while she was certainly a good poet, Plath was never much to my taste. Evidently I was mistaken in only drawing my judgement from Ariel, as Crossing the Water really did fall into line with the kind of poetry that appeals to me.
Favourites:
— Finisterre
— Heavy Women
— Insomniac
— I am Vertical
— Widow
— Magi
— Love Letter
— Small Hours
— Last Words
— Ouija
— Two Sisters of Persephone
— Maenad
— Witchburning
— Crossing the Water
Favourites:
— Finisterre
— Heavy Women
— Insomniac
— I am Vertical
— Widow
— Magi
— Love Letter
— Small Hours
— Last Words
— Ouija
— Two Sisters of Persephone
— Maenad
— Witchburning
— Crossing the Water
March 20, 2023
A very mixed bag but overall a pleasant read. I prefer Plath most when her poems home in on a specific character and evoke a very specific time and place; the more abstract pieces were sometimes a bit overwhelming and hard to grasp what was being portrayed. Many parts of Plath’s verse were surprisingly witty and the overall references to mythology and nature were fun. My personal favourites were: In Plaster, The Surgeon at 2 a.m., Widow, Mirror and Zoo Keeper’s Wife.
April 18, 2024
i love this woman’s writing so much, it genuinely makes me feel inspired and validated. there is no one like her but oh it’s so hard being a sylvia plath enjoyer when sylvia plath herself is very questionable . like starting off this book already with the damn f slur and its not even the first time like COME ON GIRL!!!! u don’t get a pass just because it was the 1960’s and u were a privileged white woman.
July 24, 2009
Sylvia Plath is a genius. Some of my favorites are Wuthering Heights, Blackberrying, Mirror. But really, I loved them all so much I've picked up Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams again, which I had never finished. Finishing Crossing the Water makes me want to read everything Plath.
February 9, 2021
I am not sure if it is my lack of knowledge in poetry, or the language barrier as I am not a native English speaker, but I feel that his collection didn't touch me enough. I'll try to meet Plath again in the future though
February 19, 2010
This book makes me wonder why no one tried to stop her from killing herself.
September 24, 2012
Brilliant as usual, Sylvia!
October 27, 2018
This is the silence of astounded souls.
June 29, 2025
I Am Vertical
But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.
Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odours.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them—
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.
But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.
Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odours.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them—
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.
January 27, 2024
aaaaaaaaggggggghhhh!!!!!!!! here are my favorites from this anthology:
1. i am vertical
2. the babysitters
3. in plaster
4. mirror
5. last words
1. i am vertical
2. the babysitters
3. in plaster
4. mirror
5. last words
March 24, 2024
creo que no va a ser lo mejor que lea de la autora pero aún así me ha parecido muy entretenido, mis favoritos: mirror, insomniac, in plaster <33
January 26, 2025
In plaster!! Best poem in the collection (for me)
October 5, 2023
Almost every line has a surprise
July 7, 2023
"Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."
May 24, 2023
Now silence after silence offers itself
July 9, 2023
"Mirror" stuck out to me the most, the others not so much.
April 18, 2013
Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath is the collection between The Colossus and before the publication of Ariel, and it continues to push the envelop between dark and light. Plath has come to represent the dichotomy of dark and light in all of us, with our deep passions and desires that lie in tension with our duty to family and society. In this collection, the water becomes a metaphor for the surface veneer that many of us carry, but Plath examines how easily this surface can be shaken and disturbed.
In “Finisterre,” “Now it is only gloomy, a dump of rocks–/Leftover soldiers from old, messy wars./The sea cannons into their ear, but they don’t budge./Other rocks hide their grudges under the water.//” (page 15) Plath examines the aging process and the grudges carried from the past into the present and how that sullies the outside like the weathering of a rock face. The poem further flourishes into a series of worshiping people looking to that which is beyond themselves, particularly the larger “Lady of the Shipwrecked” who admires the sea as the man worships her and the peasant worships the sailor.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/04/c...
In “Finisterre,” “Now it is only gloomy, a dump of rocks–/Leftover soldiers from old, messy wars./The sea cannons into their ear, but they don’t budge./Other rocks hide their grudges under the water.//” (page 15) Plath examines the aging process and the grudges carried from the past into the present and how that sullies the outside like the weathering of a rock face. The poem further flourishes into a series of worshiping people looking to that which is beyond themselves, particularly the larger “Lady of the Shipwrecked” who admires the sea as the man worships her and the peasant worships the sailor.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/04/c...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 275 reviews