Plath's first collection of poems, published in 1960, gathers work from her years as a student and young writer in the United States and England. The poems are carefully made, with rich language, formal patterns and strong images drawn from the sea, gardens, landscapes, animals and family. Themes of nature, art, fathers, silence and the pressure of the past recur. The title poem pictures the speaker tending a vast broken statue, often read as a figure of her late father. It shows her skill developing before the sharper voice of her later poems.