Sylvia Plath (1932-63) was a prolific poet for the few years that she was active before her untimely death, by her own hand, aged just 30. But what are her greatest poems? A few titles spring to mind, but it’s not easy to reach a consensus on, say, Sylvia Plath’s top ten best poems.

Plath explores unrequited love, sadly penning her heartbreak in quiet, melancholic stanzas. Chiming throughout is a refrain locked away in parentheses, Plath seemingly whispering to herself in a feeble act of self-comfort.

Discover some of the best Sylvia Plath poems, and see the late poet's raw and vulnerable side as she shares difficult emotions.

What is Sylvia Plath’s saddest poem? Lady Lazarus, in the poem, she expresses her pain of the failed suicide attempts. In one of the stanzas, Plath compares herself to the Nazi Lampshades, which used to be made of Jewish skin.

We might feel lucky that, in her short life, she left even those per­for­mances for pos­ter­i­ty, but there’s more: last year, we fea­tured Sylvia Plath read­ing her poet­ry, the 1977 record released by pio­neer­ing pre-audio­book label Caed­mon which con­tains 23 poems Plath com­mit­ted to tape as ear­ly as 1959.