Anne Sexton
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Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928–October 4, 1974), born Anne Gray Harvey, was an American poet and writer.
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Life
Sexton was born in Norton, Massachusetts, and spent most of her life near Boston. In 1945, Sexton began attending a boarding school, Rogers Hall, in Lowell, Massachusetts. She eloped in 1948 with Alfred Muller Sexton, known as "Kayo." Before their divorce in the early 1970s, she had two children with Kayo: Linda Gray Sexton, later a novelist and memoirist, and Joyce Sexton. She suffered from depression for most of her life. Sexton's first breakdown took place in 1954. After a second breakdown in 1955, she met Dr. Martin Orne at Glenside Hospital, who encouraged her to take up poetry, and she enrolled in her first poetry workshop, with John Holmes as the instructor. After the workshop, Sexton experienced quick success with her poetry, with her poems accepted by The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the Saturday Review. Sexton's poetic life was further encouraged by her mentor, W.D. Snodgrass, whose poem, "Heart's Needle" encouraged her to write "The Double Image", a poem significant in expressing the multi-generational relationships existing between mother and daughter.
While working with Holmes, Sexton encountered Maxine Kumin, with whom she became good friends throughout the rest of her life. Kumin and Sexton rigorously critiqued each other's work, and wrote four children's books together.
She attended a poetry workshop with Sylvia Plath, taught by Robert Lowell. Later, Sexton herself taught workshops at Boston College, Oberlin College, and Colgate University. Sexton is the modern model of the confessional poet, perhaps begun by the publication of Snodgress' "Heart's Needle." Sexton helped open the door not only for female poets, but for female issues; Sexton wrote about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, and adultery before such issues were even topics for casual discussion, helping redefine the boundaries of poetry. Sexton modeled for a stint at Boston's Hart Agency. Astonishingly, she never garnered any collegiate accolades or even a degree.
She committed suicide, using carbon monoxide, in 1974. She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery & Crematory in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts. British musician Peter Gabriel wrote a song, "Mercy Street", dedicated to Sexton in 1986. Diane Middlebrook wrote a biography Anne Sexton: A Life, in 1992. Sexton's daughter, Linda Grey Sexton, wrote a book called Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, in 1994.
Poetry
The title for her eighth collection of poetry, The Awful Rowing Toward God, came from her meeting with a Roman Catholic priest who, although he refused to administer the last rites, did tell her: "God is in your typewriter," which gave the poet the desire and willpower to continue living and writing for some more time. In 1967, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection, which was Live or Die.
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)
- The Book of Folly (1972)
- The Death Notebooks (1974)
- The Awful Rowing Towards God (1975; posthumous)
- 45 Mercy Street (1976; posthumous)
- Words for Dr. Y. (1978; posthumous)