Weekend Writing: Best Poems by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath's writing is one of the many influences that inspired me to fall in love with poetry--not just to read poetry (and understand it), but to also write my own poetry. To this day, Plath is one of my favorite poets. So, of course, I have to celebrate her on my blog today--her birthday.

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Last year on her birthday, I celebrated her with a complete biography of her life and work. Plath was a prolific poet for the few years she was active before her untimely suicide on February 11, 1963, at age 30. She would have turned 87 today. It's hard to believe that she very well could have still been alive today if she hadn't committed suicide in 1963. For many people, she's remembered for her suicide.

But for people like me, she's remembered for her poetry. She should be remembered for that. She's remembered for leaving us some of the most beautiful confessional poetry ever written. She also gave us one of my favorite novels of all time, The Bell Jar. 

Sylvia Plath (photo/The New Yorker)

Plath has inspired me as a poet. She has inspired countless other women to take chances, write without any self-doubt, and her personal history has opened the doors for many discussions on mental health. Plath was so beautiful--both on the outside and inside. She had a beautiful, haunted mind, and this allowed her to write the poems we still need to read in 2019.

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath 

To celebrate Sylvia Plath, I'm presenting 10 of my favorite poems of hers. Her poems contain beautiful, heartbreaking imagery, and many of them contain themes of death, self-reflection, rage, love, and despair. Plath was willing to confess her emotions in her poetry--because that was the one place she turned to in her time of need.

10 of the Best Sylvia Plath Poems: 

• "Morning Song"
• "Lady Lazarus"
• "Ariel"
• "Daddy"
• "The Rival"
• "Edge"
• "You're"
• "Epitaph for Fire and Flower"
• "Wintering"
• "Fever 103"

Plath had so much to offer. I can't help but wonder what else she could have offered if she had more time to write other poems. But, we'll never know the answer. Instead, we must celebrate and treasure the poems we do have. And what do we have? Beautiful poems that have withstood the test of time. Beautifully tragic poems that help us understand the world a little bit more.

Happy birthday, Angel. You're so beautiful. You are missed. Thank you for inspiring me to write my own poetry. 

-KJL-