“I am drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness - and even I am not strong enough to deny the routine, the rote, to simplify. No, I go plodding on, afraid that the blank hell in back of my eyes will break through, spewing forth like a dark pestilence; afraid that the disease which eats away the pith of my body with merciless impersonality will break forth in obvious sores and warts, screaming "Traitor, sinner, imposter.”

American poet and author

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author. She helped shape confessional poetry and is best known for work that brought private experience into sharp literary focus. Her books include The Colossus and Other Poems, Ariel, and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1981 with previously unpublished work, and that collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982, awarded to her posthumously.