Showing posts with label what critics said about the colossus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what critics said about the colossus. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Before Sylvia Was Famous: A Review From 1962


Sylvia Plath's first collection of poems, The Colossus, was published in England in 1960 and in the U.S. in May 1962. The Oakland [California] Tribune ran this review on July 29, 1962. I thought it was a refreshing read, without all the biographical baggage Plath's poems carry today.

Book-review editors get literally tons of new books and can review in print only a select few. The reviewer, Jack Anderson (b. 1935) had the good taste to review The Colossus. In 1959 he had quit UC-Berkeley to work for the Oakland Tribune. Anderson became a New York Times dance critic and a pioneering dance historian as well as a poet.