Crossing the Water

Crossing the Water and Winter Trees contain the poems written during the exceptionally creative period of the last years of Sylvia Plaths 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.

Nearly all the poems here have the familiar Plath daring, the same feel of bits of frightened, vibrant, indignant consciousness translated instantly into words and images that blend close, experienced horror and icy, sardonic control. Alan Brownjohn, New Statesman