“The world is blood-hot and personal”

I picked up this book because I was vaguely familiar with Sylvia Plath through cultural osmosis but had never actually read her work, and I wanted to change that.

I’m not sure what to make of this collection. There were a few poems I liked (“Tulips,” “Berck-Plage,” “Paralytic”) but others seemed... jumbled? I’m not sure if that’s the right word.

There’s a dreamlike quality in Plath’s writing, evoking imagery mostly by naming colours, which is enough to establish the location or the mood but then I’d feel a bit lost. I felt like I never quite got what she was gesturing at; I know she was a writer and I know she was abused and I know she killed herself, but I didn’t know her, so the deeply personal nature of many of these poems made it difficult for me to grasp her meaning.

CONTENT WARNINGS: death, suicide, injury, blood, racism