--- product_id: 15465900 title: "Ariel: Poems – Sylvia Plath's Celebrated Posthumous Masterpiece and Poetry Collection" price: "$27.86" currency: USD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/15465900-ariel-poems-sylvia-plaths-celebrated-posthumous-masterpiece-and-poetry-collection store_origin: US region: United States of America --- # Ariel: Poems – Sylvia Plath's Celebrated Posthumous Masterpiece and Poetry Collection **Price:** $27.86 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Ariel: Poems – Sylvia Plath's Celebrated Posthumous Masterpiece and Poetry Collection - **How much does it cost?** $27.86 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.us](https://www.desertcart.us/products/15465900-ariel-poems-sylvia-plaths-celebrated-posthumous-masterpiece-and-poetry-collection) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description "Sylvia Plath's last poems have impressed themselves on many readers with the force of myth. They are among the handful of writings by which future generations will seek to know us and give us a name." — The Critical Quarterly Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific oeuvre but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel . Ted Hughes helped bring the collection to life in 1966, and its publication garnered worldwide acclaim. This collection showcases the beloved poet’s brilliant, provoking, and always moving poems, including "Ariel," "The Applicant," "Lady Lazarus," and "Edge", and once again shows why readers have fallen in love with her work over generations. Review: Just Read Her Poetry, Let Her Stop "Standing" For Things... - This collection, and Plath in general I think, get both unfairly burdened and paradoxically minimized. So many readers want Plath to mean and to be so many things. Ultimately, this hagiography leads to diminishing the depth of her art to a patina of idiot wind like "feminist," "confessional," and "obsessed with her Daddy/Elektra stuff." All of which has unfortunately kept me away from deeply reading Plath for so long. Interestingly, I came to re-read this collection (or really, in my mind, to read it now for the first time) only because I was reading and LOVING the collected poems of Ted Hughes. He was simply blowing my mind---so I read a bit about him, and though I knew he was married to Plath and a bit about the soap operatic story of his second wife, I never appreciated how much HE, this awe inspiring genius poet stood in total awe of Plath's work. If he was that impressed, I had to see what the fuss was about. And underneath all the expectations and labels, what it's about is DAMN good poetry. The collection starts off with "Morning Song," which is the most accurate, beautiful, sad, and perfect poem I've ever read about caring for children and caring for yourself when you're caring for children. The phrase I used when describing some of the lines to my wife was "inevitable." That's the highest compliment one poet can give another---it means that she didn't get CLOSE to the "truth" of what she was trying to say...she didn't "turn a clever phrase" or tell the truth "slant." She wrote PERFECT words and lines. They HAVE TO be that way. She said it the best it can be said. Done. Luckily for artists after her, she didn't do this ALL the time (who could?) While MANY of the poems in Ariel are inevitable, some miss. Some still hold on to Plath's earlier style in Colossus wherein she attacks the Thesaurus and pursues a sense of ambiguity to the point of producing coldness and vague, limpid lines. But do not be put off by these cautions or by any possible cliche or negative expectations---Plath was an intensely gifted and cosmically touched poet---Ariel roars. Review: An imagery masterpiece and deconstruction of being a happy housewife - Basically, everybody should read this. I don't care if you don't like poetry. I paid a buck fifty for the paperback "Revised" edition (arranged by Plath's daughter Frieda in an attempt to be more faithful to her mother's arrangement, in contrast to the arrangement by Frieda's father, Ted Hughes), but this is a million dollar book. The poetry is rich in images, with ominous visions of Nazis and death sharing the pages with bees, puking babies, and other fixtures of domesticity. Plath is playful with language, but sharp and relentless in her deconstruction of the world around her. She does not give any illusion of her life as a mother and wife being a fairy tale ending; she readily admits that suicide is on her mind. So thickly layered are each of her poems, I will gladly reread them all a dozen more times to find more juicy double meanings and commentary tucked away in the lines. Some of my personal favorite poems were: Lesbos -- The kitchen is not a holy ground to Sylvia. She enjoys zero time spent with another woman, possibly the mistress who took her husband away, whose grating attitude makes idle chit-chat a living hell. The Applicant -- "First, are you our sort of person?//Do you wear//A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,//A brace or a Hook,//Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch" This poem speaks for itself. Daddy -- Among the most well-known poems from this collection, it devilishly mixes childlike word play with black images of fascism, "The boot in the face, the brute//Brute heart of a brute like you". It reads like a scathing, adult version of Dr. Seuss. I love it. Just get it already! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #116,422 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #37 in Love Poems #52 in American Poetry (Books) #79 in Death, Grief & Bereavement Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,967 Reviews | ## Images ![Ariel: Poems – Sylvia Plath's Celebrated Posthumous Masterpiece and Poetry Collection - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71LasYWw0SL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Just Read Her Poetry, Let Her Stop "Standing" For Things... *by M***D on January 7, 2014* This collection, and Plath in general I think, get both unfairly burdened and paradoxically minimized. So many readers want Plath to mean and to be so many things. Ultimately, this hagiography leads to diminishing the depth of her art to a patina of idiot wind like "feminist," "confessional," and "obsessed with her Daddy/Elektra stuff." All of which has unfortunately kept me away from deeply reading Plath for so long. Interestingly, I came to re-read this collection (or really, in my mind, to read it now for the first time) only because I was reading and LOVING the collected poems of Ted Hughes. He was simply blowing my mind---so I read a bit about him, and though I knew he was married to Plath and a bit about the soap operatic story of his second wife, I never appreciated how much HE, this awe inspiring genius poet stood in total awe of Plath's work. If he was that impressed, I had to see what the fuss was about. And underneath all the expectations and labels, what it's about is DAMN good poetry. The collection starts off with "Morning Song," which is the most accurate, beautiful, sad, and perfect poem I've ever read about caring for children and caring for yourself when you're caring for children. The phrase I used when describing some of the lines to my wife was "inevitable." That's the highest compliment one poet can give another---it means that she didn't get CLOSE to the "truth" of what she was trying to say...she didn't "turn a clever phrase" or tell the truth "slant." She wrote PERFECT words and lines. They HAVE TO be that way. She said it the best it can be said. Done. Luckily for artists after her, she didn't do this ALL the time (who could?) While MANY of the poems in Ariel are inevitable, some miss. Some still hold on to Plath's earlier style in Colossus wherein she attacks the Thesaurus and pursues a sense of ambiguity to the point of producing coldness and vague, limpid lines. But do not be put off by these cautions or by any possible cliche or negative expectations---Plath was an intensely gifted and cosmically touched poet---Ariel roars. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An imagery masterpiece and deconstruction of being a happy housewife *by Z***L on September 21, 2017* Basically, everybody should read this. I don't care if you don't like poetry. I paid a buck fifty for the paperback "Revised" edition (arranged by Plath's daughter Frieda in an attempt to be more faithful to her mother's arrangement, in contrast to the arrangement by Frieda's father, Ted Hughes), but this is a million dollar book. The poetry is rich in images, with ominous visions of Nazis and death sharing the pages with bees, puking babies, and other fixtures of domesticity. Plath is playful with language, but sharp and relentless in her deconstruction of the world around her. She does not give any illusion of her life as a mother and wife being a fairy tale ending; she readily admits that suicide is on her mind. So thickly layered are each of her poems, I will gladly reread them all a dozen more times to find more juicy double meanings and commentary tucked away in the lines. Some of my personal favorite poems were: Lesbos -- The kitchen is not a holy ground to Sylvia. She enjoys zero time spent with another woman, possibly the mistress who took her husband away, whose grating attitude makes idle chit-chat a living hell. The Applicant -- "First, are you our sort of person?//Do you wear//A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,//A brace or a Hook,//Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch" This poem speaks for itself. Daddy -- Among the most well-known poems from this collection, it devilishly mixes childlike word play with black images of fascism, "The boot in the face, the brute//Brute heart of a brute like you". It reads like a scathing, adult version of Dr. Seuss. I love it. Just get it already! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Loved *by G***N on June 16, 2026* Loved --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.us/products/15465900-ariel-poems-sylvia-plaths-celebrated-posthumous-masterpiece-and-poetry-collection](https://www.desertcart.us/products/15465900-ariel-poems-sylvia-plaths-celebrated-posthumous-masterpiece-and-poetry-collection) --- *Product available on Desertcart United States of America* *Store origin: US* *Last updated: 2026-07-31*