The liberated soul of a poet

The Complete Poems
Anne Sexton
Mariner Books

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) has been a prominent figure in American poetry for the past fifty years. A Pulitzer Prize winner and a Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard, she was principal poet in delineating bold issues of menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, drug addiction at a time when other poets did not consider these as poetic materials. This 'bold and the beautiful' poet also dealt with love, alienation, loneliness, madness, death etc which has been one of the main themes of her poetry. It is said that poetry is an expression of one's thought and ideas. This is clearly demonstrated well in the poetry of Anne Sexton. The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton comprises ten volumes of verse and six poems from her last years. All the details of her life have been laid bare in this brilliant piece of work. To read the book is to know her in totality.
Sexton was unfortunate in going through a chaotic and troubled life as a child. From the beginning she was a loner. She was unwanted in the family and her parents were busy in mending their shattered and miserable conjugal life. They could not give proper attention to her upbringing. Consequently she turned out to be a problem child and later to be a person with manifold personality disorders. Subsequently in her own conjugal life she was not happy at all and was abused by her husband.
To describe herself in all such situations the poet says in 'Her Kind':
Dreaming evil, I have done my/Lonely thing, twelve fingered, out of mind /A woman like that is not a woman, quite/ I have been her kind
Recalling the neglect of her parents she writes in 'Those Times':
Of the nightly humiliations when Mother undressed me / of the life of the day time, locked in my room / being the unwanted, the mistake /that Mother used to keep Father / from his divorce
In 'Cripples and other stories' Sexton writes:
Disgusted, mother put me /on the potty / She was good at this / My father was fat on scotch / It leaked from every orifice
In the poem 'Walking in Paris' she notes:
I have deserted my husband and my children / the Negro issue, the late news and the hot baths / My room in Paris, no more than a cell / is crammed with 58 Lbs. of books.
Tormented and deeply saddened in life, she could only be compared to her fellow poet Sylvia Plath: 'When everything else soured; when a succession of therapists deserted her for whatever good, poor, or personal reasons; when intimates lost interest or could not fulfill all the roles they were asked to play; when a series of catastrophes and physical illnesses assaulted her, the making of poems remained her one constant'. 'Out of furniture (she made) a tree'. But disgusted with life she did not wish to live in this cruel world and tried to commit suicide several times:
My supply /of tablets /has got to last for years and years / I like them more than I like me
Yes / I try / to kill myself in small amounts,/an innocuous occupation
I, who chose two times / to kill myself
Death was simpler than I'd thought

Let the witches take away my guilty soul / I pretended I was dead / until the white men pumped the poison out
The town is silent / The night boils with eleven stars / Oh starry starry night! / This is how I want to die
Incest, adultery, lesbianism and other types of sexual adventures were some of the main themes of Anne Sexton's poetry as has been mentioned before. Critics of poetry have severely criticized her for such frank and straightforwardness on such hush-hush issues. But she did not listen to their words and wrote on :
In the poem 'All the pretty ones' she says:
Now I fold you down, my drunkard / my navigator / my first lost keeper, to love or look at later
In the poem 'Housewife' she speaks thus:
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah / into their fleshy mothers / A woman is her mother / That's the main thing
In 'Young Girl' she claims
Dear love, as simple as some distant evil / we walk a little drunk up these three flights /………for we do not explain my husband's insane abuse /and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled……………/ Tell them need is an excuse for love. Tell them need prevails / Tell them I remake and smooth your bed and am your wife
It can be presumed from the poetry how brave this woman poet was, from her reflections on incest and lesbianism. She can be considered as one of the first voices of female sexuality and the feminist movement in American literature. And feminists would be proud of her contribution to their cause. A couple of examples would suffice.
In the poem 'The Sun' she writes:
I undress under the burning magnifying glass /………Let me be sick with your heat/…….Now I am utterly given / I am your daughter, your sweet-meat
In ' Flee on your donkey' she says:
Thirty-three years of the same dull incest /that sustained us both /You, my bachelor analyst / who sat on Mandborough Street /sharing your office with your mother
In 'Mother and Jack and the rain' Sexton's vocal manner is all:
On my damp summer bed I cradled my salty knees / and heard father kiss me through the wall /…….I made no voyages, I owned no passport / I was the daughter /Whisky fortified /my father in the next room /He outlasted the weather /counted his booty and brought his ship into port
In ' Rapunzel' ?
A woman / who loves a woman / is forever young / the mentor/and the student /feed off each other / Many a girl /had an old aunty /………they would play rummy /or lie on the couch / and touch and touch /old breast again young breast……../ They play mother-me-do / all day……………………………../ Hold me, my good dear, hold me, and thus they played mother-me-do
Apart from the revealing issues of sexuality, the poet is also concerned about the war-mongering credentials of American society. During that time America became involved in a couple of wars around the world and the she expressed her feelings in her poetry. She criticized the identity of American society in this regard. She asserts in 'The Fire bombers':
'We are America / We are the coffin fillers / we are the grocers of death / We pack them in crates like cauliflower/……../America/ where are your credentials?'
You will have to like the poetry of Anne Sexton due to its depth, aesthetics and easy-to-understand language. This omnibus of Sexton's poetry will definitely enthrall poetry lovers and will take them to cloud nine --- to enjoy the real and hard insights of life, death, madness, loneliness and sexuality.

Waliul Arefin is a freelance writer