Anne Sexton

For the singer Ann Sexton, see Ann Sexton

File:Anne-sexton.jpg

Anne Sexton, 1974

Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928, – October 4, 1974,) born Anne Gray Harvey, was a modern American poet, author of children's books, and a playwright. She is most well known for her poetry belonging to the confessional school of poets in the style of other neo-formalists such as, George Starbuck, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, and Theodore Roethke. Although, these poets, including Sexton, cannot always be categorized or limited by one type of form, they broke new ground by delivering prose that expressed their innermost dialogue, with language that was provocative, and which veered away from romantic and standard forms of poetry. Sexton's poetry was charcterized by incisive metaphors, unexpected rhythms, and precise wording that covered a spectrum of feelings that many people can relate to. Her poetry challenged the myths and superficial values that society subscribes to, while expressing her fears, anger, and struggle against mental illness.

Personal life

Anne Gray Harvey was born in Newton, Massachusetts, and spent most of her life near Boston Her early life had the trappings of of a financially comfortable existence in a middle class environment. In 1948, at the age of 19, she married Alfred Muller Sexton, known as “Kayo” who later worked for her father’s textile business. She modeled for a time for Boston's Hart Agency. Before their divorce in the early 1970s, she had two children with Kayo: Linda Gray Sexton, later a novelist and memoirist, and Joyce Sexton. Her relationship with her daughters, complex, yet joyful as well, was the basis for some of her poetry. Her eldest daughter, Linda, after her mother’s death, published Anne's letters and later works. Although, her life seemed simple, suburban, and externally satisfying it would soon metamorphize into something completely different for Sexton. After the birth of each daughter, in 1953 and 1955, respectively, she suffered from postpartum depression and was hospitalized at Westwood Lodge, a neuropsychiatric hospital where she would repeatedly return to for help.

Illness and subsequent career

Anne was encouraged by her psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Orne, to write poetry as a way to cope with her illness. In the Fall of 1957, she attended a poetry workshop taught by Robert Lowell, an already established American poet, who would later be thought of as a poet whose work gave rise to ‘Confessionalism’. One of her classmates was rising poet Sylvia Plath. A close friend and collaborator that she met through another poetry workshop was Maxine Kumin. Through their long friendship they would offer support and critique each other’s work. Together they wrote four children's books. Sexton was to experience immediate success with her poetry and had pieces published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine and The Saturday Review.

Sexton's poetic career was greatly influenced by her mentor, W.D. Snodgrass whose poem Heart’s Needle (which garned Snodgrass a Pulitzer Prize, in 1960)provided inspiration for the writing of her own piece called Double Image – a poem which dilineates her breakdown while also being an ode to her daughter.

Her first book of poetry - and still thought of as one of her best - was To Bedlam and Part Way Back, published in 1960, which chronicles her experiences while being institutionalized and her subsequent road to recovery. The writing's emotional content is controlled, yet lyrical, and follows the natural rhythm of language. Later works were less effective and less well regarded, after despair, bleakness, and addiction set in affecting Sexton's writing and career.

In 1962 Sexton published All My Pretty Ones. So popular was her poetry in England that an edition of Selected Poems was published there as a Poetry Book Selection in 1964.

Content and themes of work

Sexton has been called the quintessential Confessionalist poet for her soul wrenching verse that addresses formerly taboo topics, such as neurosis and madness, through the medium of poetry. Although not considered a strictly feminist writer, she did speak to women's issues and opened the way further for the recognition and acceptance of female poets and their work. She preferred to think of herself as a “storyteller” rather than a “Confessionalist.” If the goal of confessional poetry is to exorcise demons from the unconscious, than Anne Sexton was a master of the form. On the other hand, she has been criticized for being narcisstic, exhibitionistic, and raw. Her work, both honest and anguishing, left no thoughts, however conflicted or horrendous, unexposed.

Anne Sexton, having a natural flair for the dramatic, often gave public readings of her poetry. She had a flamboyant persona when performing and would sometimes read aloud with her chamber rock group, Anne Sexton and Her Kind performing the back up music. She sometimes referred to herself as a mad housewife or a witch; an allegory often found in her works. The following is an excerpt from her poem, Her Kind that she often opened with when reading in public.

I have gone out, a possessed witch,

haunting the black air, braver at night;

dreaming evil, I have done my hitch

over the plain houses, light by light:

lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.

A woman like that is not a woman, quite.

I have been her kind.

The popularity of her book, Transformations established her as a dark poet. The following is an excerpt from the nursery tale parody Cinderella:

Cinderella and the prince

lived, they say, happily ever after,

like two dolls in a musuem case

never bothered by diapers or dust,

never arguing over the timing of an egg,

never telling the same story twice,

never getting a middle-aged spread,

their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.

Regular Bobbsey Twins

That story

End of Life and posthumous works

Put play in here somewhere?

The title for her last and eighth collection of poetry, The Awful Rowing Toward God, came from her meeting with a Roman Catholic priest who told her: "God is in your typewriter," which gave the poet the desire and willpower to continue living and writing for a while longer.

On October 4, 1974 Sexton was having lunch with poet and friend, Maxine Kumin to review this most recent book. Then without a note or any warning, she went into her garage, started the ignition of her car, and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

In an interview over a year before her death she told an interviewer that she had written the first drafts of The Awful Rowing Toward God in 20 days with "two days out for despair, and three days out in a mental hospital." Other posthumous collections of her poems include 45 Mercy Street (1976), and Words for Dr. Y(1978), both edited by Linda Gray Sexton. The publication of Sexton's work culminated in The Complete Poems in 1981.

Anne Sexton was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts.

Awards

In 1967 Sexton received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for the book Live or Die (1966), capping her accumulation of honors such as the Frost Fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (1959), the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (1961), the Levinson Prize (1962), the American Academy of Arts and Letters travelling fellowship (1963), the Shelley Memorial Prize (1967), and an invitation to give the Morris Gray reading at Harvard. To follow were a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ford Foundation grants, honorary degrees, professorships at Colgate University and Boston University, and other distinctions.

Although she earned honorary degrees, Sexton never garnered any collegiate accolades or even an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree.

Controversy

The content of Sexton’s work is controversial, in an of itself, due to its sensitive subject matter; however, another posthumous controversy, has arisen out of the writing of her biography, Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Middlebrook. Sexton’s psychiatrist, with the permission of Linda Sexton, released the audio tapes from his private sessions with Sexton to Middlebrook so that she could access them for the writing of the biography. On one side of the controversy is the issue of doctor-patient confidentiality. There are those professionals in the field of psychiatry who feel that using the tapes was a breach of ethics. On the other side of the controversy is Diane Middlebrook, and some associates of Anne Sexton, who feel that being privilege to such personal information was in line with Anne Sexton's own thoughts about expressing, without reservation, one's innermost feelings. Diane Middlebrook defends the biography by saying, "The Sexton case is absolutely unique, in the importance of her therapy to the development of her art,"

Bibliography

• To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)
• All My Pretty Ones (1962)
• Live or Die (1966) - Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1967
• Love Poems (1969)
• Transformations (1971) ISBN 0-618-08343-X
• The Book of Folly (1972) ISBN 0-395-14014-5
• The Death Notebooks (1974)
• The Awful Rowing Towards God (1975; posthumous)
• 45 Mercy Street (1976; posthumous)
• Words for Dr. Y. (1978; posthumous)

Further reading

• Anne Sexton: A Biography, by Diane Wood Middlebrook (1992) ISBN 0-679-74182-8
• Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, by Linda Gray Sexton (1994) ISBN 0316782076

Miscellaneous

• Conrad Susa composed an opera called Transformations, based on her collection of poems by the same name.
• British musician Peter Gabriel wrote a song, "Mercy Street", dedicated to Sexton in 1986.
• Dave Matthews has said that the song Grey Street, from the album Busted Stuff (2002), is inspired by Sexton.

External links

• Poems by Anne Sexton at PoetryFoundation.org
• 1991 audio interview with Diane Wood Middlebrook, author of Anne Sexton by Don Swaim
• Anne Sexton's Gravesite
• Anne Sexton biography and example of poetry. Part of a series of poets.

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