In her first collection of poems, "The Colossus," she wrote of a feeling of nothingness: "white: it is a complexion of the mind.” At the same time, she found solace in nature, from “a blue mist” “dragging the lake,” to white flowers that “tower and topple,” to blue mussels “clumped like bulbs.” After "The Colossus" she  published "The Bell Jar," her only novel, which fictionalizes the time she spent  working for Mademoiselle magazine in New York during college.
U prvoj zbirci pjesama, „Kolosu”, pisala je o osjećaju ništavnosti: „bijelo: to je boja uma.” Istovremeno je pronalazila utjehu u prirodi: u „plavoj magli što se vuče preko jezera”, bijelim cvjetovima što se „uzdižu i padaju”, plavim dagnjama „poput grozda gomolja”. Nakon „Kolosa” objavila je „Stakleno zvono”, svoj jedini roman, u kojem piše o vremenu koje je provela radeći za časopis „Mademoiselle” kao studentica u New Yorku.