Anne Sexton
Born: 1928- 1974
Years Active: 1956- 1974
Genre: Confessionalism
Born: 1928- 1974
Years Active: 1956- 1974
Genre: Confessionalism
Biography
Anne Gray Harvey was born in Newton Massachusetts in 1928. Anne grew up in a middle class family is Weston, a suburb of Boston. Despite the comfortable economic situation, Anne childhood was not always pleasant. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother a failed writer.
In 1948 she eloped with Alfred Muller Sexton, although she was engaged to be married to another man. Soon after wedding Anne gave birth to two daughters Linda and Joyce. Anne battled with bout of depression, and sought therapy after committing adultery while her husband was overseas in Korea.
After the birth of second daughter and the death of her grandmother, Anne found herself to be extremely depressed. She attempted suicide, and on a few occasions abused her children. Again, Anne began therapy sessions, where she was encouraged to write, as an outlet for her emotions.
She attended workshops where she met other poets (who included Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell) and this encouraged her to continue writing and publish poems. Anne published poetry collections, children’s books, and “self portrait”. She received many awards for her work including a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Live or Die, in 1967.
As she grew older Anne’s depression worsened. On October 4, 1974, after completing her last collection of poems “The Awful Rowing Toward God”, Anne Sexton committed suicide by asphyxiation from carbon monoxide in her garage.
Works
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)
All My Pretty Ones (1962)
Live or Die (1966)
Love Poems (1969)
Mercy Street (1969)
Transformations (1971)
The Book of Folly (1972)
The Book of Miguel Flores' Dad (1972)
The Death Notebooks (1974)
The Awful Rowing Toward God (1975; posthumous)
45 Mercy Street (1976; posthumous)
Words for Dr. Y. (1978; posthumous)
Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (1988, posthumous)
Children's books (all co-written with Maxine Kumin)
1963 Eggs of Things (illustrated by Leonard Shortall)
1964 More Eggs of Things (illustrated by Leonard Shortall)
1974 Joey and the Birthday Present (illustrated by Evaline Ness)
1975 The Wizard's Tears (illustrated by Evaline Ness)
Prose
Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (1977)
No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews and Prose (1985)
Moods
Vivid: “…the color of a rose when it bleeds.” (Song for a Red Nightgown)
Bleak: “My under taker waits for me” (Hurry up Please It’s Time)
Personal: “I am delicate. You’ve been gone./ The losing has hurt me some” (Song for a Lady)
Anguished: “…I am unfit/ to know just who you are/ hung like a pig on exhibit.” (For God While Sleeping)
Morbid: “‘The baby turned to ice./ Someone put her in the refrigerator/ and she turned as hard as a Popsicle’” (The Death Baby)
Groups or Movements
Anne Sexton was a participant of the ‘confessionalists’ movement of poetry. Confessional poets write in a manor that tends to be honest and telling about personal situations, such as illness, death, sexuality and relationships. Confessional poetry surfaced in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Before this time period poems on such topics were not seen. Confessional poets strived to record deeply personal thoughts and emotional, while maintaining the integrity of the poem. Often their words were highly structured, which was surprising to readers given the innovative content.
The poetry of Anne Sexton is inarguably ‘confessional’. Sextons poems included topics such as abortion, drug addiction, and death. In Sextons All My Pretty Ones, she expresses grief and loss as a result of the death of her parents. The Death Notebooks and The Awful Rowing Toward God, her last published works, are a reflection on death, and the her own desire for her life to end.
Similar Artists, Followers, Influenced by
Influenced By:
Sexton met Robert Lowell in 1957 at a workshop that he was teaching. This workshop had a huge impact on the way Sexton wrote. Lowell taught about confessional poetry and the importance of its construction.
William De Witt Snodgrass was Sextons mentor. They met at the Antioch Writer's Conference in 1957. Anne related to Snodgrass’ poetry, and thusly encouraged her to write in a similar manor, that was honest about her relationships with her children. Snodgrass’ most influential poem on Sexton was Heart Needle.
Similar Artists
Sexton and Sylvia Plath became friends while attending the same workshop in 1957 taught by Robert Lowell. Both Plath and Sexton write poetry in confessional form. Both also focus intimately on death and the dying process in their writings. Also both Plath and Sexton seem to have similar experiences in regard to mental health which affected their writing.
Sexton’s poetry was also similar to one of her mentors, Robert Lowell. Both Sexton and Lowell are true confessional poets. Although Sexton and Lowell do not share similarities in some topic area (areas of abortion, menstruation, etc), they do share certain themes in their writing, including death, birth, and nature.
Follower:
Sexton does not have any proclaimed followers. Although confessional poetry is still written by many poets, few are willing to admit that Sextons psycho/ suicidal writings are their motivations for writing. Sexton is studied by both High school and College students in the United States and throughout the world.
Anne Gray Harvey was born in Newton Massachusetts in 1928. Anne grew up in a middle class family is Weston, a suburb of Boston. Despite the comfortable economic situation, Anne childhood was not always pleasant. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother a failed writer.
In 1948 she eloped with Alfred Muller Sexton, although she was engaged to be married to another man. Soon after wedding Anne gave birth to two daughters Linda and Joyce. Anne battled with bout of depression, and sought therapy after committing adultery while her husband was overseas in Korea.
After the birth of second daughter and the death of her grandmother, Anne found herself to be extremely depressed. She attempted suicide, and on a few occasions abused her children. Again, Anne began therapy sessions, where she was encouraged to write, as an outlet for her emotions.
She attended workshops where she met other poets (who included Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell) and this encouraged her to continue writing and publish poems. Anne published poetry collections, children’s books, and “self portrait”. She received many awards for her work including a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Live or Die, in 1967.
As she grew older Anne’s depression worsened. On October 4, 1974, after completing her last collection of poems “The Awful Rowing Toward God”, Anne Sexton committed suicide by asphyxiation from carbon monoxide in her garage.
Works
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)
All My Pretty Ones (1962)
Live or Die (1966)
Love Poems (1969)
Mercy Street (1969)
Transformations (1971)
The Book of Folly (1972)
The Book of Miguel Flores' Dad (1972)
The Death Notebooks (1974)
The Awful Rowing Toward God (1975; posthumous)
45 Mercy Street (1976; posthumous)
Words for Dr. Y. (1978; posthumous)
Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (1988, posthumous)
Children's books (all co-written with Maxine Kumin)
1963 Eggs of Things (illustrated by Leonard Shortall)
1964 More Eggs of Things (illustrated by Leonard Shortall)
1974 Joey and the Birthday Present (illustrated by Evaline Ness)
1975 The Wizard's Tears (illustrated by Evaline Ness)
Prose
Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (1977)
No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews and Prose (1985)
Moods
Vivid: “…the color of a rose when it bleeds.” (Song for a Red Nightgown)
Bleak: “My under taker waits for me” (Hurry up Please It’s Time)
Personal: “I am delicate. You’ve been gone./ The losing has hurt me some” (Song for a Lady)
Anguished: “…I am unfit/ to know just who you are/ hung like a pig on exhibit.” (For God While Sleeping)
Morbid: “‘The baby turned to ice./ Someone put her in the refrigerator/ and she turned as hard as a Popsicle’” (The Death Baby)
Groups or Movements
Anne Sexton was a participant of the ‘confessionalists’ movement of poetry. Confessional poets write in a manor that tends to be honest and telling about personal situations, such as illness, death, sexuality and relationships. Confessional poetry surfaced in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Before this time period poems on such topics were not seen. Confessional poets strived to record deeply personal thoughts and emotional, while maintaining the integrity of the poem. Often their words were highly structured, which was surprising to readers given the innovative content.
The poetry of Anne Sexton is inarguably ‘confessional’. Sextons poems included topics such as abortion, drug addiction, and death. In Sextons All My Pretty Ones, she expresses grief and loss as a result of the death of her parents. The Death Notebooks and The Awful Rowing Toward God, her last published works, are a reflection on death, and the her own desire for her life to end.
Similar Artists, Followers, Influenced by
Influenced By:
Sexton met Robert Lowell in 1957 at a workshop that he was teaching. This workshop had a huge impact on the way Sexton wrote. Lowell taught about confessional poetry and the importance of its construction.
William De Witt Snodgrass was Sextons mentor. They met at the Antioch Writer's Conference in 1957. Anne related to Snodgrass’ poetry, and thusly encouraged her to write in a similar manor, that was honest about her relationships with her children. Snodgrass’ most influential poem on Sexton was Heart Needle.
Similar Artists
Sexton and Sylvia Plath became friends while attending the same workshop in 1957 taught by Robert Lowell. Both Plath and Sexton write poetry in confessional form. Both also focus intimately on death and the dying process in their writings. Also both Plath and Sexton seem to have similar experiences in regard to mental health which affected their writing.
Sexton’s poetry was also similar to one of her mentors, Robert Lowell. Both Sexton and Lowell are true confessional poets. Although Sexton and Lowell do not share similarities in some topic area (areas of abortion, menstruation, etc), they do share certain themes in their writing, including death, birth, and nature.
Follower:
Sexton does not have any proclaimed followers. Although confessional poetry is still written by many poets, few are willing to admit that Sextons psycho/ suicidal writings are their motivations for writing. Sexton is studied by both High school and College students in the United States and throughout the world.
1 comment:
Anne Sexton reminds me a lot of John Berryman, but that could be because they were amongst the founders of the confessional poetry school. While Sexton is more direct about her subject matter than Berryman (he tends to use other characters, metaphors, mix his life into stories) they both applied their real life woes to their poetry. Not to mention they also both killed themselves after lives of mental turmoil. I think I like Sexton better than Berryman because her poems have a distinctly feminine touch, it's like "The Bell Jar" for the college level.
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