Weekend Writing: Celebrating Anne Sexton

One of the most prolific confessional poets of all time, Anne Sexton's poetry discusses depression, suicidal tendencies, and very personal details of her life. She disclosed her struggles in her poetry, and she's often regarded as one of the most personal poets of all time.

I'm celebrating Anne Sexton today on the blog because she was born on November 9, 1928, in Newton, Massachusetts, as Anne Gray Harvey. She spent most of her childhood in Boston. The daughter of a successful businessman, Anne's childhood was pretty ordinary, but it wasn't exactly happy. She had a complicated relationship with her parents--a relationship many biographers consider abusive.

In 1945, she enrolled at Rogers Hall boarding school and after graduation, she enrolled at Garland Junior College. She described the college as a "finishing" school.

Anne Sexton (photo/Quotes - Famous People)

On August 16, 1948, when she was just 19 years old, Anne married Alfred "Kayo" Muller Sexton II, and the two would be married until 1973. The couple had two children: Linda Gray Sexton (b. 1953) and Joyce Ladd Sexton (b. 1955). While Kayo was serving during the Korean War, Anne became a fashion model for Boston's Hart Agency to support herself and their little family.

Anne suffered from post-partum depression, and after the birth of their first daughter, she had a mental breakdown and was admitted to a neuropsychiatric hospital. Anne suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of her life, but her struggle with post-partum depression brought on more manic episodes. She eventually met Dr. Martin Orne, who encouraged her to start writing poetry. Of course, she followed his advice.

"My analyst told me to write between our sessions about what I was feeling and thinking and dreaming.... I thought maybe I could do that. Oh, I was turned on. I wrote two or three [poems] a day for about a year." - Anne Sexton 

In 1957, Anne began attending poetry workshops, where she met fellow confessional poets Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Maxine Kumin, and George Starbuck. She formed close bonds with these poets. She was able to talk to them about things she couldn't discuss with her husband and family. Anne later paid homage to Plath and their friendship after Plath's 1963 suicide with a beautiful poem, "Sylvia's Death."

Anne Sexton (photo/Literary Hub)

In 1960, Anne published her first book of poetry, To Bedlam and Part Way Back. The collection discusses her psychiatric struggles, and it recounts the experiences of madness and near-madness. Her poem, "Her Kind," uses the persecution of witches as an analogy for the oppression of women in society.

"A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind.... A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind." - Anne Sexton, "Her Kind" 

Anne's poetic career was further encouraged by her mentor, W.D. Snodgrass. She was inspired by his poem "Heart's Needle," which discusses the separation he felt from his three-year-old daughter. Anne used the poem as an inspiration for her piece, "The Double Image," a poem that explores the multi-generational relationship between a mother and her daughter.

Anne's other published work includes All My Pretty Ones (1962), Live or Die (1966), which won her the Pulitzer Prize, Love Poems (1969), the play Mercy Street (1969), Transformations (1972), The Death Notebooks (1974), and posthumously volumes: The Awful Rowing Toward God (1975), 45 Mercy Street (1976), and Words for Dr. Y: Uncollected Poems with Three Stories (1978).

Anne Sexton's poetry collection "Live or Die" (photo/Goodreads).

In the late 1960s, Anne was plagued by her mental illness and manic episodes, and this began to affect her poetry career. While she still wrote poetry and gave readings of her work, she wasn't writing at the same speed she did earlier in her career.

On October 4, 1974, Anne had lunch with her good friend, Maxine Kumin, to revise poems for her unfinished manuscript (The Awful Rowing Toward God). When she returned home, Anne put on her mother's old fur coat, removed all of her rings, poured herself a glass of vodka, locked herself in her garage, started the engine of her car, and ended her life by carbon monoxide poisoning. She was 45 years old.

Anne Sexton (photo/Medium)

Anne Sexton is known as a modern model for confessional poetry--due to the intimate and emotional content of her poetry. She wrote about her struggles with mental illness, as well as the overall experience of being a woman in the 1960s and '70s. She wrote openly about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, and drug addiction during a time period when these were taboo subjects. No one embraced these topics, but Anne thought differently. She may have been criticized for these themes, but the topics greatly contributed to the popularity of her work by today's readers.

Author Erica Jong reflected, "She is an important poet not only because of her courage in dealing with previously forbidden subjects, but because she can make the language sing.... There are many poets of great talent who never take that talent anywhere.... They write poems which any number of people might have written. When Anne Sexton is at the top of her form, she writes a poem which no one else could have written."

No one else could have written her beautiful personal poetry besides Anne Sexton because she experienced those emotions and memories. They were her poems--no one else's. They were hers, and we're very glad she wrote them.

Anne Sexton (photo/Houston Chronicle)

Below are 10 poems by Anne Sexton you should read in honor of her birthday. Read and embrace her poetry. They deserve love and attention.

10 of the Best Anne Sexton Poems: 

• "The Double Image" 
• "Wanting to Die"
• "Her Kind"
• "The Truth the Dead Know"
• "45 Mercy Street"
• "More Than Myself"
• "The Fury of Sunsets"
• "Sylvia's Death"
• "All My Pretty Ones" 

-KJL-