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Mercies: Selected Poems
When Anne Sexton took her own life in October 1974, she left behind a body of work which had already, in less than two decades of writing, won her the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, established her as one of the foremost voices of her generation, and shocked America by breaking multiple taboos of subject matter, from insanity, depression and addiction to menstruation, adultery and the figure of the witch.
Sexton's name is legendary. Her poetry is read around the world, translated into over thirty languages, and in her own country remains a touchstone for poets and readers looking for a rawness of perception, a vitality of expression, and a confessional frankness. Yet, incredibly, there has been no new UK edition of her work for decades. In Mercies, readers are provided with a resonant new selection from the writings of this natural phenomenon of a poet.
Sexton's name is legendary. Her poetry is read around the world, translated into over thirty languages, and in her own country remains a touchstone for poets and readers looking for a rawness of perception, a vitality of expression, and a confessional frankness. Yet, incredibly, there has been no new UK edition of her work for decades. In Mercies, readers are provided with a resonant new selection from the writings of this natural phenomenon of a poet.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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4,130 people want to read
About the author
Anne Sexton
144books2,417followersAnne Sexton once told a journalist that her fans thought she got better, but actually, she just became a poet. These words are characteristic of a talented poet that received therapy for years, but committed suicide in spite of this. The poetry fed her art, but it also imprisoned her in a way.
Her parents didn’t expect much of her academically, and after completing her schooling at Rogers Hall, she went to a finishing school in Boston. Anne met her husband, Kayo (Alfred Muller Sexton II), in 1948 by correspondence. Her mother advised her to elope after she thought she might be pregnant. Anne and Kayo got married in 1948 in North Carolina. After the honeymoon Kayo started working at his father-in-law’s wool business.
In 1953 Anne gave birth to her first-born, . Two years later Linda’s sister, Joyce Ladd, was born. But Anne couldn’t cope with the pressure of two small children over and above Kayo’s frequent absence (due to work). Shortly after Joy was born, Anne was admitted to Westwood Lodge where she was treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne (and six months later, her son, Dr. Martin Orne, took over). The original diagnosis was for post-natal depression, but the psychologists later decided that Anne suffered from depression of biological nature.
While she was receiving psychiatric treatment, Anne started writing poetry. It all started after another suicide attempt, when Orne came to her and told her that she still has a purpose in life. At that stage she was convinced that she could only become a prostitute. Orne showed her another talent that she had, and her first poetry appeared in print in the January of 1957. She wrote a huge amount of poetry that was published in a dozen poetry books. In 1967 she became the proud recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for .
In March 1972 Anne and Kayo got divorced. After this a desperate kind of loneliness took over her life. Her addiction to pills and alcohol worsened. Without Kayo the house was very quiet, the children were at college and most of Anne’s friends were avoiding her because they could no longer sympathize with her growing problems. Her poetry started playing such a major role in her life that conflicts were written out, rather than being faced. Anne didn’t mention a word to Kayo about her intention to get divorced. He knew that she desperately needed him, but her poems, and her real feelings toward him, put it differently. Kayo talks about it in an interview as follows:
On 4 October 1974 she put on her mother’s old fur coat before, glass of vodka in hand, she climbed into her car, turned the key and died of monodioxide inhalation. She once told Orne that “I feel like my mother whenever I put it [the fur coat] on�. Her oldest daughter, Linda, was appointed as literary executor and we have her to thank for the three poetry books that appeared posthumously.
Her parents didn’t expect much of her academically, and after completing her schooling at Rogers Hall, she went to a finishing school in Boston. Anne met her husband, Kayo (Alfred Muller Sexton II), in 1948 by correspondence. Her mother advised her to elope after she thought she might be pregnant. Anne and Kayo got married in 1948 in North Carolina. After the honeymoon Kayo started working at his father-in-law’s wool business.
In 1953 Anne gave birth to her first-born, . Two years later Linda’s sister, Joyce Ladd, was born. But Anne couldn’t cope with the pressure of two small children over and above Kayo’s frequent absence (due to work). Shortly after Joy was born, Anne was admitted to Westwood Lodge where she was treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne (and six months later, her son, Dr. Martin Orne, took over). The original diagnosis was for post-natal depression, but the psychologists later decided that Anne suffered from depression of biological nature.
While she was receiving psychiatric treatment, Anne started writing poetry. It all started after another suicide attempt, when Orne came to her and told her that she still has a purpose in life. At that stage she was convinced that she could only become a prostitute. Orne showed her another talent that she had, and her first poetry appeared in print in the January of 1957. She wrote a huge amount of poetry that was published in a dozen poetry books. In 1967 she became the proud recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for .
In March 1972 Anne and Kayo got divorced. After this a desperate kind of loneliness took over her life. Her addiction to pills and alcohol worsened. Without Kayo the house was very quiet, the children were at college and most of Anne’s friends were avoiding her because they could no longer sympathize with her growing problems. Her poetry started playing such a major role in her life that conflicts were written out, rather than being faced. Anne didn’t mention a word to Kayo about her intention to get divorced. He knew that she desperately needed him, but her poems, and her real feelings toward him, put it differently. Kayo talks about it in an interview as follows:
On 4 October 1974 she put on her mother’s old fur coat before, glass of vodka in hand, she climbed into her car, turned the key and died of monodioxide inhalation. She once told Orne that “I feel like my mother whenever I put it [the fur coat] on�. Her oldest daughter, Linda, was appointed as literary executor and we have her to thank for the three poetry books that appeared posthumously.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 222 reviews
January 26, 2025
i will never be the same again.
June 11, 2017
Anne Sexton is considered both a religious and feminist poet, a product of her upbringing and the era in which she lived. Born in 1928 outside of Boston to descendants of Puritans, Sexton was the oldest daughter in a deeply Christian family. Although her family may have expected more from her, Sexton exhibited that she wanted to write poetry from a young age. Until she committed suicide in 1974, Sexton achieved her goal of being one of the nation's premier poet laureates, winning the Pulitzer for To Live or Die in 1960. Selected Poems gleans poetry from each of her collections, including those published posthumously.
Sexton's poetry in this volume mixes her religious values with her experience in the feminist movement. Many selections describe her experience in church and her expectations for what will occur when she dies. Influenced by both of her parents' deaths in 1959, the height of her own popularity, Sexton's work at the time is dark and contains much mention of hospitals, doctors, medicine, and her distrust of the health care profession. As she grapples with death, she begins to hint at taking her own life, which she does later. The poetry in this section ends up being too dark for my taste.
As the feminist movement takes root, Sexton writes much of a woman's role sexually. She limits her focus to this aspect of a woman's place in relationships, although I would have liked to know her opinion about a woman's role in the workforce and society at large. Her poetry is graphic as she describes an abortion, rape, the role of a uterus, and intercourse. While these poems may have been important to the feminist movement they were also a little too graphic for my tastes, even though I am generally a proponent of women's issues. Perhaps if the poems were less racy, I would have lauded them more as important to the feminist cause.
One section that did work for me was Sexton's retelling of various Disney and fairytale princess stories. Traditionally these tales involve a princess getting involved in a life or death situation only to have a prince bale them out. Here, Sexton writes of the background information, and casts the villainess in an even worse light than does Disney. In one case, the princess is the real hero rather than the prince, and in the case of Snow White, it is circumstances rather than the prince's efforts that lead the couple to live happily ever after.
While Anne Sexton is lauded as a religious and feminist poet, her poems are a little too dark for my taste. Grappling with issues as death, Christianity, and the body, Sexton's work is depressing, graphic, and hint at the suicide she will later commit. One can see the brilliance in her work, but the themes and lack of positive energy were a little to negative for me, thus I rate Selected Poems by Anne Sexton 3 stars.
Sexton's poetry in this volume mixes her religious values with her experience in the feminist movement. Many selections describe her experience in church and her expectations for what will occur when she dies. Influenced by both of her parents' deaths in 1959, the height of her own popularity, Sexton's work at the time is dark and contains much mention of hospitals, doctors, medicine, and her distrust of the health care profession. As she grapples with death, she begins to hint at taking her own life, which she does later. The poetry in this section ends up being too dark for my taste.
As the feminist movement takes root, Sexton writes much of a woman's role sexually. She limits her focus to this aspect of a woman's place in relationships, although I would have liked to know her opinion about a woman's role in the workforce and society at large. Her poetry is graphic as she describes an abortion, rape, the role of a uterus, and intercourse. While these poems may have been important to the feminist movement they were also a little too graphic for my tastes, even though I am generally a proponent of women's issues. Perhaps if the poems were less racy, I would have lauded them more as important to the feminist cause.
One section that did work for me was Sexton's retelling of various Disney and fairytale princess stories. Traditionally these tales involve a princess getting involved in a life or death situation only to have a prince bale them out. Here, Sexton writes of the background information, and casts the villainess in an even worse light than does Disney. In one case, the princess is the real hero rather than the prince, and in the case of Snow White, it is circumstances rather than the prince's efforts that lead the couple to live happily ever after.
While Anne Sexton is lauded as a religious and feminist poet, her poems are a little too dark for my taste. Grappling with issues as death, Christianity, and the body, Sexton's work is depressing, graphic, and hint at the suicide she will later commit. One can see the brilliance in her work, but the themes and lack of positive energy were a little to negative for me, thus I rate Selected Poems by Anne Sexton 3 stars.
December 8, 2024
a girl's relationship with literature adressing her most somber thoughts is an unbreakable bond
October 2, 2020
... how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly and for so long
~ from 'Sylvia's Death', dedicated to Sylvia Plath
I've long been meaning to read Sexton because of the way she is consistently coupled with Sylvia Plath - I'm not sure though about how well they might compare. There are perhaps superficial similarities in that they both are 'confessional' poets, though that has always seemed a slightly derogatory label to me, as if women writers don't have the capacity for empathetic imagination or the ability to write beyond their own lives... They both committed suicide, of course, at relatively young ages, and both suffered from mental illness.
But there are also significant differences: Plath was well-educated and academic having won a Fulbright to Oxford, whereas Sexton didn't graduate and was an autodidact. Sexton's struggles with alcoholism perhaps move her closer to Lucia Berlin but without Berlin's verve and humour. I guess I'm saying that these kinds of literary comparisons are not necessarily helpful and serve to 'package' writers as commodities.
In any case, this book is an ideal starting point, containing as it does selections from Sexton's work from her whole life-span. I'd have to say that I far preferred her earlier writing - there's a freshness and an authenticity, even rawness, about it as she explores the deaths of her parents, her fragile mental state, the memories and loss of youth, and the struggle to live in the face all the weights of depression that draw her continually towards death.
Some of the poems explore explicitly female lives ('but I was tired of the gender of things') and Sexton certainly pushes the boundaries in writing of periods, masturbation, sex and adultery. One of the reasons comparisons with Plath do Sexton a disservice is that she's far quieter as a poet: that blazing energy and high-octane rage that makes Plath so confrontational especially in a volume like is not what we find here. Sexton is more accommodating, I feel, more forgiving, especially in her personal relationships. Her imagery doesn't shock as Plath's so frequently does, she doesn't batter us with blood.
So removing Sexton from the influence of Plath helps us appreciate her poetry on its own terms: her Transformations based on dark retellings of fairy tales look forward to Angela Carter and 'Briar Rose' is especially powerful. The later religious poetry was less to my personal taste and the posthumous verse sadly is a testament to a mind in freefall. But yes, as an introductory volume to Sexton and to find your feet within her work, this is very good.
Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC.
May 10, 2018
Selected Poems, Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook (Editor), Diana Hume George (Editor)
I see your eyes,
Lifting their tents.
They are blue stones,
They begin to outgrow moss.
You Blink in surprise
And I wounder what you can see.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و چهارم ماه ژانویه سال 2012 میلادی
عنوان: اشعار برگزیده از آن سکستون؛
ا. شربیانی
I see your eyes,
Lifting their tents.
They are blue stones,
They begin to outgrow moss.
You Blink in surprise
And I wounder what you can see.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و چهارم ماه ژانویه سال 2012 میلادی
عنوان: اشعار برگزیده از آن سکستون؛
ا. شربیانی
June 18, 2024
“I am queen of all my sins
forgotten. Am I still lost?
Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself�
forgotten. Am I still lost?
Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself�
September 6, 2010
i saw death's face and blushed
July 29, 2018
When I first tried to read this book, in my college years, I couldn't make it through. At the time, there was something about Sexton's voice, her vision of life, the way she chose to dispense with meter and instead sprinted to catch up to her own rhymes with lines that were often quite long, etc., that struck me as having a unpleasantly cynical edge to it, a flatly American, perhaps even uncouth quality that put me off. Given the choice, I preferred the terse, star-hot perfections of Plath. Now, many years later, rifling through my childhood bookcases in my parents' attic and deciding on a whim to give this book another go, I found it a much easier read. I'm not sure exactly how or when I changed in the interval, but somehow, somewhere along the way, I've become more open to what this book has to say, and I'm glad of it.
I suppose the thing about Sexton that, to me, makes her different from, say, Plath, is a constant recurring need to deflate: it seems that any time that an idea is broached that hints at the romantic, the ideal, the sublime, the transcendent, the following line always violently flattens, deflates, brings us back down to earth. It's like she's saying, "You think romance exists? No, it's just TV commercials; it's just biology; it's just the predictable manifestations of Freudian psychology -- vulgar, mechanistic, capitalistic, etc." Not just in the Transformations poems, but it seems to me in almost all her books. In the later religious poems, she does begin to admit the possibility of the divine, in a way. I'm all for puncturing conventional concepts of sublimity/transcendence, but I also like it when the poet offers an alternative positive vision/conception of sublimity to replace what she is puncturing. Unless you're in a certain place in your mind, it can be harder to see that work being done in Sexton.... But now I see that the alternative she offers is somehow contained in the vibrancy of her similes themselves.
Some lines that stood out to me this time around:
"In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That's what it means to be crazy."
"A nurse's flashlight blinds me to see who I am." (I love this idea that, in order for other people to see us clearly, to affix an identity to us, they have to take away our ability to see ourselves, our ability to formulate our own identities)
"Once I was a couple. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brown and lean,
watching the toy sloops go by, holding court
for busloads of tourists. Once I called breakfast the sexiest
meal of the day. Once I invited arrest
at the peace march in Washington. Once I was young and bold
and left hundreds of unmatched people out in the cold."
(at the end of a poem that is essentially one long run-on sentence) "...and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine."
Also, this whole poem:
I suppose the thing about Sexton that, to me, makes her different from, say, Plath, is a constant recurring need to deflate: it seems that any time that an idea is broached that hints at the romantic, the ideal, the sublime, the transcendent, the following line always violently flattens, deflates, brings us back down to earth. It's like she's saying, "You think romance exists? No, it's just TV commercials; it's just biology; it's just the predictable manifestations of Freudian psychology -- vulgar, mechanistic, capitalistic, etc." Not just in the Transformations poems, but it seems to me in almost all her books. In the later religious poems, she does begin to admit the possibility of the divine, in a way. I'm all for puncturing conventional concepts of sublimity/transcendence, but I also like it when the poet offers an alternative positive vision/conception of sublimity to replace what she is puncturing. Unless you're in a certain place in your mind, it can be harder to see that work being done in Sexton.... But now I see that the alternative she offers is somehow contained in the vibrancy of her similes themselves.
Some lines that stood out to me this time around:
"In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That's what it means to be crazy."
"A nurse's flashlight blinds me to see who I am." (I love this idea that, in order for other people to see us clearly, to affix an identity to us, they have to take away our ability to see ourselves, our ability to formulate our own identities)
"Once I was a couple. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brown and lean,
watching the toy sloops go by, holding court
for busloads of tourists. Once I called breakfast the sexiest
meal of the day. Once I invited arrest
at the peace march in Washington. Once I was young and bold
and left hundreds of unmatched people out in the cold."
(at the end of a poem that is essentially one long run-on sentence) "...and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine."
Also, this whole poem:
July 28, 2016
Fasten your seat belts, boys, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
I knew very little about Anne Sexton before getting into this outstanding compilation of her work. This is the most wicked and damned woman in the history of poetry and no one will ever come close - forget about Patti Smith, Sexton knew she was doomed from birth and she's crawling down the mountain to tell you all about it.
There are poems about the miracle of birth, with the twist that she's giving the baby away for adoption as soon as its born (Unknown Girl In The Maternity Ward). There are poems about doing time in a mental asylum. Just to raise the pulpy Jacqueline Susann quotient there's a poem describing all her lovely dolls, all the different colors of them laid out in front of her, which she'll ingest, praying for Death to show up at her door. Don't Fear The Reaper?
Sexton has poems of adulterers leaving her to return to their wives, and endless accounts of her periods and masturbations - thank you!! The book loses a star because amidst all this drama is her insane need to rhyme in every stanza, the true sign of an insane poet, i.e. "I told the doctor I wanted to die, he jotted that down and asked 'Dear Lady, why?'".
SAMPLE POEM TITLES:
OLD DWARF HEART
THE ABORTION
FLEE ON YOUR DONKEY
MENSTRUATION AT FORTY
YOUR FACE ON THE DOG'S NECK
YOU ALL KNOW THE STORY OF THE OTHER WOMAN
All hail Anne Sexton, Queen of the American Nightmare. Her succubus will fuck your body and even worse, your mind.
I knew very little about Anne Sexton before getting into this outstanding compilation of her work. This is the most wicked and damned woman in the history of poetry and no one will ever come close - forget about Patti Smith, Sexton knew she was doomed from birth and she's crawling down the mountain to tell you all about it.
There are poems about the miracle of birth, with the twist that she's giving the baby away for adoption as soon as its born (Unknown Girl In The Maternity Ward). There are poems about doing time in a mental asylum. Just to raise the pulpy Jacqueline Susann quotient there's a poem describing all her lovely dolls, all the different colors of them laid out in front of her, which she'll ingest, praying for Death to show up at her door. Don't Fear The Reaper?
Sexton has poems of adulterers leaving her to return to their wives, and endless accounts of her periods and masturbations - thank you!! The book loses a star because amidst all this drama is her insane need to rhyme in every stanza, the true sign of an insane poet, i.e. "I told the doctor I wanted to die, he jotted that down and asked 'Dear Lady, why?'".
SAMPLE POEM TITLES:
OLD DWARF HEART
THE ABORTION
FLEE ON YOUR DONKEY
MENSTRUATION AT FORTY
YOUR FACE ON THE DOG'S NECK
YOU ALL KNOW THE STORY OF THE OTHER WOMAN
All hail Anne Sexton, Queen of the American Nightmare. Her succubus will fuck your body and even worse, your mind.
November 5, 2021
Fear,
a motor,
pumps me around and around
until I fade slowly
and the crowd laughs.
I fade out, an old bicycle rider
whose odds are measured
in actuary graphs.
September 23, 2022
Strong. I especially liked the poems from ‘Live or die�, ‘The book of folly� and ‘In Excelsis�, Sexton’s last (?) poem.
April 20, 2017
Ан Секстън, която пише за болката биографично, не просто лично. Ан Секстън, която излиза да чете пред публика, събува си токчетата, запалва цигара, дългата ѝ рокля замита пода. Ан Секстън, която започва да пише, за да се лекува. Ан Секстън, която говори за смъртта, самоубийството, изневярата и всички неща, за които не искаме да говорим, без свян. Ан Секстън, която е в ролята на дъщеря, майка, любовница, съпруга, домакиня, вещица. Ан Секстън, чийто речник е смесица от висок стил и кухненски принадлежности. Ан Секстън, за чийто ум няма покой. Ан Секстън, която е неудобна, убива, драска, цапа, бунтува се.
И разбира се, Ан Секстън, която в крайна сметка просто се бори да оцелее. Дори когато не успява. Дори когато се превръща във водна боичка � и се разтваря.
Толкова ми е важна.
И каква (не)случайност, че последните редове на тази стихосбирка са:
in half winter, half spring.
//а точно днес, 19 април 2017 г., уж в разгара на пролетта, заваля сняг.
И разбира се, Ан Секстън, която в крайна сметка просто се бори да оцелее. Дори когато не успява. Дори когато се превръща във водна боичка � и се разтваря.
Толкова ми е важна.
И каква (не)случайност, че последните редове на тази стихосбирка са:
in half winter, half spring.
//а точно днес, 19 април 2017 г., уж в разгара на пролетта, заваля сняг.
June 12, 2013
According to Webb’s definition, a poet's voice consists of four major, mutually- influencing components: diction, subject matter, temperament, and style of thought.
Anne Sexton’s writing style is brutally honest, even desperate at times. She seems to be writing poetry from a confessional standpoint, but also one of psychoanalysis, writing poetry is also a way of trying to cure her own madness, but as I read, I wonder if her words exacerbate her illness? Suicide for her is a deep “desire,� even a life-long “passion.� (pg. 98). Sexton refuses to romanticize all that is abundant around her; instead she sees normal human pleasures as repulsive, like a sunset: “the horizon bleeds and sucks its thumb� (pg. 213). Death is her ultimate muse and her metaphoric lover.
As a bold, feminine poetic voice of the 60s, Anne Sexton unabashedly wrote and performed on stage with a hauntingly deep voice, her poetry laced with taboo subject matter using crisp, unexpected, powerful metaphor. Sexton’s voice is unapologetic, as she delves deep into daring themes of sex, affairs, drug addiction, abortion, religion, and mental illness.
Sexton’s temperament is ironic because she can be both pessimistic and humoristic at the same time. Her self-deprecating humor humanizes her and makes her suicidal tendencies relatable with casual comments like: “There are no knives for cutting your throat� (pg.9) Some of her observations are so sadly absurd they make us laugh, like when she discusses what underwear she wishes to die in: “white cotton, the briefs of my childhood� (pg. 216). Most of her self-hatred is directed internally; in her poetry, we can see her anger, guilt, remorse, regret, loss, desperation, and need bubble up, yet ahead of her time, she is not ashamed to show her vulnerability.
Sexton’s style is emotionally charged, demanding, and urgent, yet has undertones of hopelessness. When she does discuss romance, it is pragmatic like: “the door to your room was the door to mine� (pg. 51), and when she talks about Christianity, it’s in a mocking manner: “and the Lord said abracadabra� (pg. 194. Sexton is a skeptic, questioning God every step of the way. Sexton is obsessed with what she doesn’t have, all that has escaped her, all that she has lost. Some may view her as a narcissist, but I see her as tortured soul, even if that soul chain-smokes and sips dirty martinis while wearing rabbit fur.
I love Anne Sexton’s poetry for its originality and bravery. Some of my favorite lines of hers are:
“Writers digging into their souls like jackhammers� (234)
“I’m not a war baby, I’m a baby at war (pg. 264)
“I made you to find me � (pg. 34)
She was deeply mad, yet was able to articulate her madness in such a beautiful and relatable way to her audience. I understand Sexton’s mentality that no relationship is ever truly secure, and that life is full of loss and heartbreak. Perhaps her most striking emotion is guilt, from her early abortion (“you bruise against me�), to her abandonment of her children (“I would rather die than love�), to not being able to live up to the ideal housewife of the 60s. She mocks domesticity with: “fixed the supper for the worms and the elves.� Perhaps Sexton felt so displaced from reality that she could only find comfort in death. She exposes her tumultuous relationship with her mother in these telling lines: “she looked at me and said I gave her cancer.� How can one live with so much blame? Sexton seemed petrified to love, even her own kids, so she tried hard to alienate them: “how your innocence would hurt.� People can live with a myriad of negative emotions, but guilt is the hardest of them all.
Of course, there are some unpleasantries in her poetry, like when she talks about vomiting, and blood, and rotting food, but we must take in all of her morbid, sick, decaying images if we are to understand who Sexton is. Perhaps we will never know, and perhaps she never quite understood herself.
Anne Sexton’s writing style is brutally honest, even desperate at times. She seems to be writing poetry from a confessional standpoint, but also one of psychoanalysis, writing poetry is also a way of trying to cure her own madness, but as I read, I wonder if her words exacerbate her illness? Suicide for her is a deep “desire,� even a life-long “passion.� (pg. 98). Sexton refuses to romanticize all that is abundant around her; instead she sees normal human pleasures as repulsive, like a sunset: “the horizon bleeds and sucks its thumb� (pg. 213). Death is her ultimate muse and her metaphoric lover.
As a bold, feminine poetic voice of the 60s, Anne Sexton unabashedly wrote and performed on stage with a hauntingly deep voice, her poetry laced with taboo subject matter using crisp, unexpected, powerful metaphor. Sexton’s voice is unapologetic, as she delves deep into daring themes of sex, affairs, drug addiction, abortion, religion, and mental illness.
Sexton’s temperament is ironic because she can be both pessimistic and humoristic at the same time. Her self-deprecating humor humanizes her and makes her suicidal tendencies relatable with casual comments like: “There are no knives for cutting your throat� (pg.9) Some of her observations are so sadly absurd they make us laugh, like when she discusses what underwear she wishes to die in: “white cotton, the briefs of my childhood� (pg. 216). Most of her self-hatred is directed internally; in her poetry, we can see her anger, guilt, remorse, regret, loss, desperation, and need bubble up, yet ahead of her time, she is not ashamed to show her vulnerability.
Sexton’s style is emotionally charged, demanding, and urgent, yet has undertones of hopelessness. When she does discuss romance, it is pragmatic like: “the door to your room was the door to mine� (pg. 51), and when she talks about Christianity, it’s in a mocking manner: “and the Lord said abracadabra� (pg. 194. Sexton is a skeptic, questioning God every step of the way. Sexton is obsessed with what she doesn’t have, all that has escaped her, all that she has lost. Some may view her as a narcissist, but I see her as tortured soul, even if that soul chain-smokes and sips dirty martinis while wearing rabbit fur.
I love Anne Sexton’s poetry for its originality and bravery. Some of my favorite lines of hers are:
“Writers digging into their souls like jackhammers� (234)
“I’m not a war baby, I’m a baby at war (pg. 264)
“I made you to find me � (pg. 34)
She was deeply mad, yet was able to articulate her madness in such a beautiful and relatable way to her audience. I understand Sexton’s mentality that no relationship is ever truly secure, and that life is full of loss and heartbreak. Perhaps her most striking emotion is guilt, from her early abortion (“you bruise against me�), to her abandonment of her children (“I would rather die than love�), to not being able to live up to the ideal housewife of the 60s. She mocks domesticity with: “fixed the supper for the worms and the elves.� Perhaps Sexton felt so displaced from reality that she could only find comfort in death. She exposes her tumultuous relationship with her mother in these telling lines: “she looked at me and said I gave her cancer.� How can one live with so much blame? Sexton seemed petrified to love, even her own kids, so she tried hard to alienate them: “how your innocence would hurt.� People can live with a myriad of negative emotions, but guilt is the hardest of them all.
Of course, there are some unpleasantries in her poetry, like when she talks about vomiting, and blood, and rotting food, but we must take in all of her morbid, sick, decaying images if we are to understand who Sexton is. Perhaps we will never know, and perhaps she never quite understood herself.
December 28, 2022
Said the Poet to the Analyst
My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget how one word is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
something I might have said�
but did not.
Your business is watching my words. But I
admit nothing. I work with my best, for instance,
when I can write my praise for a nickel machine,
that one night in Nevada: telling how the magic jackpot
came clacking three bells out, over the lucky screen.
But if you should say this is something it is not,
then I grow weak, remembering how my hands felt funny
and ridiculous and crowded with all
the believing money.
My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget how one word is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
something I might have said�
but did not.
Your business is watching my words. But I
admit nothing. I work with my best, for instance,
when I can write my praise for a nickel machine,
that one night in Nevada: telling how the magic jackpot
came clacking three bells out, over the lucky screen.
But if you should say this is something it is not,
then I grow weak, remembering how my hands felt funny
and ridiculous and crowded with all
the believing money.
July 28, 2018
I evidently knew what to expect and was not disappointed. Anne Sexton is so great because there’s simply no way of separating her work from her time. This is the crude voice of the poet who established so many of the literary trends we yearn to escape from nowadays ( hello, you piles of poems on abortion/menstruation/suicide! ):
The fury of cocks
There they are
drooping over the breakfast plates
angel-like,
folding in their sad wing,
animal sad,
and only the night before
there they were
playing the banjo.
Once more the day’s light comes
with its immense sun,
its mother trucks,
its engines of amputation.
Whereas last night
the cock knew its way home,
as stiff as a hammer,
battering in with all
its awful power.
That theater.
Today it is tender,
a small bird,
as soft as a baby’s hand.
She is the house.
He is the steeple.
When they fuck they are God.
When they break away they are God.
When they snore they are God.
In the morning they butter the toast.
They don’t say much.
They are still God.
All the cocks of the world are God,
blooming, blooming, blooming
into the sweet blood of woman.
Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
[...]
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she’d never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she’d call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She’s out of prison.
There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and I forget who I am.
Daddy?
That’s another kind of prison.
It’s not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkenly bent over my bed
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help �
this life after death?
The fury of cocks
There they are
drooping over the breakfast plates
angel-like,
folding in their sad wing,
animal sad,
and only the night before
there they were
playing the banjo.
Once more the day’s light comes
with its immense sun,
its mother trucks,
its engines of amputation.
Whereas last night
the cock knew its way home,
as stiff as a hammer,
battering in with all
its awful power.
That theater.
Today it is tender,
a small bird,
as soft as a baby’s hand.
She is the house.
He is the steeple.
When they fuck they are God.
When they break away they are God.
When they snore they are God.
In the morning they butter the toast.
They don’t say much.
They are still God.
All the cocks of the world are God,
blooming, blooming, blooming
into the sweet blood of woman.
Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
[...]
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she’d never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she’d call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She’s out of prison.
There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and I forget who I am.
Daddy?
That’s another kind of prison.
It’s not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkenly bent over my bed
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help �
this life after death?
December 12, 2022
the epitome of 'tired and angry but somebody should be'. should be worrying how much i love writing by suicidal women
January 1, 2024
mīlu manas sad american girls
January 29, 2023
� i who was a defaced altar / i who wanted to crawl toward God could not move nor eat bread. / so i ate myself, / bite by bite / and the tears washed me, / wave after cowardly wave, / swallowing canker after canker / and Jesus stood over me looking down, / and He laughed to find me gone, / and put His mouth to mine / and gave me His air. (the sickness unto death, 1975)
v beautiful collection i think this is perhaps the first of anne sexton i’ve read and i really liked it :) a lot about sickness, religion, addiction, womanhood, motherhood, God, suicide, (which became very poignant when the first thing i read of sexton from the back cover was, �when anne sexton took her own life in 1974��) death; etc.
v beautiful collection i think this is perhaps the first of anne sexton i’ve read and i really liked it :) a lot about sickness, religion, addiction, womanhood, motherhood, God, suicide, (which became very poignant when the first thing i read of sexton from the back cover was, �when anne sexton took her own life in 1974��) death; etc.
July 13, 2012
Before Ms. Sexton committed suicide in 1974, she left quite a legacy of poetry. She was a rarity in the literary field--a popular poet in the 1960's and 1970's. She is described as one of the 20th century's most original religious poets.
I especially liked this excerpt from Anne's poem "In Excelsis" describing her experience "confronting ocean" at the beach:
here where the abyss
throws itself on the sand
blow by blow
over and over
and we stand on the shore
loving its pulse
as it swallows the stars
and has since it all began
and will continue into oblivion
past our knowing.
I especially liked this excerpt from Anne's poem "In Excelsis" describing her experience "confronting ocean" at the beach:
here where the abyss
throws itself on the sand
blow by blow
over and over
and we stand on the shore
loving its pulse
as it swallows the stars
and has since it all began
and will continue into oblivion
past our knowing.
February 16, 2010
Dear Anne Sexton,
Thank you for your muscular rhythms, your anger, your narratives, your clear-eyed and unromantic views of mothering and sex and familial wounds. Your poems aren't always consistent, but your persona is consistently fascinating. Above all, it seems sincere. Thank you for your uncomfortable confessions; your sadness; your unerring descriptive powers. Thank you, too, for your honesty. Especially for that.
Sincerely,
This Reader
Thank you for your muscular rhythms, your anger, your narratives, your clear-eyed and unromantic views of mothering and sex and familial wounds. Your poems aren't always consistent, but your persona is consistently fascinating. Above all, it seems sincere. Thank you for your uncomfortable confessions; your sadness; your unerring descriptive powers. Thank you, too, for your honesty. Especially for that.
Sincerely,
This Reader
August 22, 2022
Multe mulțumiri și recunoștință acestor două poete, Diana Geacăr & Cătălina Matei, care au tradus dintr-o mare poetă a sec. XX care a ales, ca atîția alții, să părăsească, la numai 46 de ani, lumea.
A lăsat în urmă 10 volume cu poezii, dintre care două apărute postum, unul dintre ele aducîndu-i Premiul Pulitzer în 1967.
A lăsat în urmă 10 volume cu poezii, dintre care două apărute postum, unul dintre ele aducîndu-i Premiul Pulitzer în 1967.
January 21, 2018
“The sleep of the desperate who travel backwards into darkness.�
March 31, 2022
anne sexton is my religion. i relate to this woman's writing on another level. will purchase everything she has ever written!
May 18, 2024
“I'm no more a woman than Christ was a man.�
I expect this book to pay for my next therapy session
I expect this book to pay for my next therapy session
December 24, 2021
loved the poems specifically about the falsehoods of being a mother
March 2, 2020
When I think of Anne Sexton I think of Transformation.
Read a bit about her biography and you will see what I mean � she had the guts to go far. Firstly, she ran away from her home to be with the man she loved. She worked a variety of interesting jobs � a lingerie saleswoman, a model, bookstore worker. She gave birth to her children and didn’t fit in with the role of a mother, which is why she went into therapy and from there her doctor gave her an advice to write as a form of healing.
She started taking courses led by highly intellectual people, learned a lot, and published a book or two. She was considered to be a confessional poet, but she strived for more � her poetry thrived in the time of sexual revolution and feminist movements alongside other cultural changes that were happening at the time.
Her poetry is tricky to explain to people, or at least difficult for me to explain, it was tightly connected with her personal experiences but a lot of people found themselves in her words so it does have a universality to it.
She did struggle in her life but she lived it her way. I respect that.
The Serbian edition is very tastefully done, it’s a selection from her poetry, my favorite poems were from her book “The awful Rowing toward God� that was published after her death. Very glad I bought this book 4/5.
Read a bit about her biography and you will see what I mean � she had the guts to go far. Firstly, she ran away from her home to be with the man she loved. She worked a variety of interesting jobs � a lingerie saleswoman, a model, bookstore worker. She gave birth to her children and didn’t fit in with the role of a mother, which is why she went into therapy and from there her doctor gave her an advice to write as a form of healing.
She started taking courses led by highly intellectual people, learned a lot, and published a book or two. She was considered to be a confessional poet, but she strived for more � her poetry thrived in the time of sexual revolution and feminist movements alongside other cultural changes that were happening at the time.
Her poetry is tricky to explain to people, or at least difficult for me to explain, it was tightly connected with her personal experiences but a lot of people found themselves in her words so it does have a universality to it.
She did struggle in her life but she lived it her way. I respect that.
The Serbian edition is very tastefully done, it’s a selection from her poetry, my favorite poems were from her book “The awful Rowing toward God� that was published after her death. Very glad I bought this book 4/5.
October 3, 2011
Confessional poetry at its best.
One can only sympathize with her confessions yet glorify her great sense of ability to weave magic through words.
After reading her poems (or some of them) I felt that she's a friend of mine that I can't have enough of her words.
Amazing book.
One can only sympathize with her confessions yet glorify her great sense of ability to weave magic through words.
After reading her poems (or some of them) I felt that she's a friend of mine that I can't have enough of her words.
Amazing book.
June 14, 2017
"She thinks she can warn the stars."
Definite favourites:
� Her Kind
� Young
� The Starry Night
� The Abortion
� In the Deep Museum
� From the Garden
� The Black Art
Definite favourites:
� Her Kind
� Young
� The Starry Night
� The Abortion
� In the Deep Museum
� From the Garden
� The Black Art
Read
October 9, 2022“The trees are whores yet you place
me under them. The sun is poison
yet you toss me under it like a rose.
I am out of practice at living.�
man she’s really good with words
me under them. The sun is poison
yet you toss me under it like a rose.
I am out of practice at living.�
man she’s really good with words
July 28, 2019
Anne Sexton me ha sorprendido para bien. De hecho, me ha gustado bastante esta selección de sus poemas. La reticencia que tenía con respecto a ella era que había leído que era una mujer bastante religiosa, y que algunos de sus poemas eran sobre este tema, en concreto sobre Dios, Jesús o la Virgen María. Efectivamente, estos poemas aparecen en esta recopilación, pero junto a otros que hacen replantearte ciertas ideas preconcebidas. Anne Sexton también trata temas como el útero, la menstruación a los cuarenta, o el sexo entre amantes, y de una forma natural y sin tabúes. Es por esto por lo que me he llevado una grata sorpresa al leerla, y me he alegrado de ver un ejemplo de mujer feminista y religiosa, sin que unas ideas choquen con otras, entrelazándolas para crear hermosos y motivantes poemas.
Por otro lado, Anne Sexton escribe mucho sobre su enfermedad, la depresión crónica que sufrió durante toda su vida, y por la que tuvo que tomar numerosos medicamentos e ir a terapia, e incluso internar en un hospital. Escribe sobre su doctor, las pastillas que tomaba, su vida recluida, sus compañeros de hospital... sobre temas que poco se tratan en poesía, y que ella plasmó en papel como medio de curación y desahogo, prescrito por su propio médico.
También escribe mucho sobre el cáncer que sufrió su madre y que la mató, de su lucha y de cada detalle que vivió a lo largo del tiempo. Son poemas, (o partes de ellos) muy emotivos, llenos de sentimientos grises, que hacen que cualquiera pueda empatizar con el dolor de la familia y la enferma.
Esta edición cuenta, como he dicho en la sinopsis, de una introducción reveladora plagada de información de su vida, en forma de biografía rápida de la autora, que conviene leer, o por lo menos echar un vistazo a la cronología. Gracias a esta introducción nos hacemos una idea antes de abarcar todos estos temas, y se puede llegar a comprender mejor a su autora en cada poema.
Por otro lado, Anne Sexton escribe mucho sobre su enfermedad, la depresión crónica que sufrió durante toda su vida, y por la que tuvo que tomar numerosos medicamentos e ir a terapia, e incluso internar en un hospital. Escribe sobre su doctor, las pastillas que tomaba, su vida recluida, sus compañeros de hospital... sobre temas que poco se tratan en poesía, y que ella plasmó en papel como medio de curación y desahogo, prescrito por su propio médico.
También escribe mucho sobre el cáncer que sufrió su madre y que la mató, de su lucha y de cada detalle que vivió a lo largo del tiempo. Son poemas, (o partes de ellos) muy emotivos, llenos de sentimientos grises, que hacen que cualquiera pueda empatizar con el dolor de la familia y la enferma.
Esta edición cuenta, como he dicho en la sinopsis, de una introducción reveladora plagada de información de su vida, en forma de biografía rápida de la autora, que conviene leer, o por lo menos echar un vistazo a la cronología. Gracias a esta introducción nos hacemos una idea antes de abarcar todos estos temas, y se puede llegar a comprender mejor a su autora en cada poema.
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