This comprehensive volume contains all Sylvia Plath&s mature poetry written from 1956 up to her death in 1963 The poems are drawn from the only collection Plath published while alive The Colossus as well as from posthumous collections Ariel Crossing the Water & Winter Trees The text is preceded by an introduction by Ted Hughes & followed by notes & comments on individual poems There is also an appendix containing fifty poems from Sylvia Plath&s juvenilia This collection was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry& For me the most important literary event of 1981 has been the publication eighteen years after her death of Sylvia Plath&s Collected Poems confirming her as one of the most powerful & lavishly gifted poets of our time& A Alvarez in the Observer