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Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

Author of The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton

110+ Works 5,673 Members 60 Reviews 78 Favorited

About the Author

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) is one of the most influential & frequently discussed American poets. She lived all her life in the Boston area. (Publisher Provided) Poet Anne Sexton was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1928. She attended Garland Junior College for a year and at nineteen, married Alfred show more Muller Sexton II. After the birth of her first daughter in 1953 and her second daughter in 1955, Sexton suffered mental breakdowns, which included attempting suicide on her birthday in 1955. She had been diagnosed with postpartum depression. Both times she was hospitalized at Westwood Lodge and it was there that her doctor got her to pursue her interest in writing poetry. She enrolled in a poetry workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education in 1957, which is where she met fellow poet, and soon to be close friend, Maxine Kumin. Sexton then wrote "To Bedlam and Part Way Back" (1960), "All My Pretty Ones" (1962), and in 1966, Sexton won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for "Live or Die." Sexton wrote about controversial subjects, which included abortion and drug addiction. As with many other "confessional" poets, Sexton wrote of emotional anguish which came from her battle with mental illness. In 1974, she lost that battle and committed suicide. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: Ann Sexton, Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton

Image credit: Portrait of Anne Sexton by Elsa Dorfman

Works by Anne Sexton

The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton (1981) 1,990 copies
Transformations (1971) 959 copies
Selected Poems: Anne Sexton (1988) 485 copies
Love Poems (1969) 388 copies
Live or Die (1966) 227 copies
The Awful Rowing Toward God (1975) 211 copies
All My Pretty Ones (1962) 145 copies
The Death Notebooks (1974) 133 copies
45 Mercy Street (1976) 112 copies
The Book of Folly (1972) 106 copies
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) 94 copies
Eggs of Things (1963) 14 copies
The wizard's tears (1975) 13 copies
Anne Sexton Reads (1992) 13 copies
[Two poems] 12 copies
Kreupel hart : gedichten (2001) 8 copies
Poesie 5 copies
[Four poems] 4 copies
Poemas de amor (2009) 4 copies
L'estrosa abbondanza (1997) 4 copies
Att bära en människa (1976) 4 copies
Transformaciones (2021) 3 copies
[Five poems] 3 copies
Com ella (OSSA MENOR) (2011) 3 copies
Poems 2 copies
Six poems 2 copies
[Three poems] 2 copies
Liebesgedichte : Gedichte (1995) 2 copies
Locas, locas mujeres (2013) 2 copies
La zavorra dell'eterno (2016) 1 copy
Words 1 copy
Cinderella 1 copy
L'Estrosa abbondanza (1997) 1 copy
Izabrane pjesme (2015) 1 copy
Live of Die 1 copy
You're Gonna Miss Me (1995) 1 copy
The touch 1 copy
Four 1 copy
Didn't know 1 copy
The breast 1 copy
The hoarder 1 copy
The house 1 copy
Sweeney 1 copy
Santa 1 copy
Red roses 1 copy
Love song 1 copy
Late poems 1 copy

Associated Works

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (2011) — Author — 2,089 copies
The Classic Fairy Tales [Norton Critical Edition] (1998) — Contributor — 1,001 copies
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (1990) — Contributor — 749 copies
Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality (2000) — Contributor — 370 copies
Literature: The Human Experience (2006) — Contributor — 338 copies
The Portable Sixties Reader (2002) — Contributor — 324 copies
The Penguin Book of Women Poets (1978) — Contributor — 297 copies
The Art of Losing (2010) — Contributor — 197 copies
American Religious Poems: An Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 162 copies
No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (1973) — Contributor — 122 copies
The Penguin Book of Women's Humour (1996) — Contributor — 117 copies
Emergency Kit (1996) — Contributor, some editions — 108 copies
Poems from the Women's Movement (2009) — Contributor — 105 copies
Elsewhere, Vol. II (1982) — Contributor — 103 copies
The Norton Book of Friendship (1991) — Contributor — 95 copies
The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories (1991) — Contributor — 75 copies
Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (2020) — Contributor — 74 copies
Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths (1684) — Contributor — 68 copies
The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying, and Living On (1997) — Contributor — 60 copies
The Vintage Book of American Women Writers (2011) — Contributor — 56 copies
The Erotic Impulse: Honoring the Sensual Self (1992) — Contributor — 52 copies
Modern Women Poets (2005) — Contributor — 13 copies
Fairy Poems (2023) — Contributor — 13 copies
Bright Poems for Dark Days: An Anthology for Hope (2021) — Contributor — 9 copies
Open Secrets (1972) — Contributor — 8 copies
Men and Women: The Poetry of Love (1970) — Contributor — 8 copies
New American Review 15 (1972) — Contributor — 8 copies
In'hui, No.9 — Contributor — 1 copy

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Anne Sexton in Legacy Libraries (July 2014)

Reviews

“Give me your skin
as sheer as a cobweb,
let me open it up
and listen in and scoop out the dark.”

Dark, poetic, and at times humorous retellings of Grimms' Fairytales? We love her, folks.
 
Flagged
cbwalsh | 16 other reviews | Sep 13, 2023 |
I really wanted to replace this book with a selection of her poetry which I could get for free somehow, which I wouldn’t feel bad doing as I’ve paid before and anyway I suppose that the dead are in it for fame, right. But I guess it’s not something that I needed—along with everything else today, ha—so I don’t know. But I do remember how Anne made me feel, and I know how I feel about that now. She wasn’t Anne Bradstreet, which is where the critics were midcentury, and where as a body they still probably are now, even if they wear the masque of the practitioners of poetry today who probably think Anne is—well, I mean, she is dead. But she did live, and although Anne is both The Girl Herself, and you know, some psycho white girl, I do think that we all know what it’s like, even if generally we successfully try not to know, right.

I don’t know. “My uncontrolled thoughts are not to be feared.” (Esther Hicks). I never wanted to be Midcentury Marcellus, you know, but I didn’t get that when I actually read Anne, which is why I’d almost like to read her again, even though I can’t really afford the time & money investment of “school”-y books anymore, and don’t quite place the same value as I once did on that stage in the life cycle, right….

(sigh, rattling around in a disturbed way inside the robot) We live; we die; we’re happy; we get angry; we’re subtle; we’re emotional…. We’re not robots….

We’re ducks.
… (more)
 
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goosecap | 17 other reviews | Aug 15, 2023 |
Anne Sexton had an extraordinary impact on me when I was first introduced to her poetry in my teenage years. Although she differs greatly from Emily Dickinson, the subject matter of death is one that transfixed them both, as well as me. Sexton may seem an odd next transition after Dickinson, but it SO worked for me. To this day, her poetry still hits me viscerally and I'm stunned by her intimacy. "Her Kind" is still my favorite poem of all.
 
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Andy5185 | 17 other reviews | Jul 9, 2023 |
A few poems stuck in my head, but mostly I enjoyed the former owner's margin notes. Interesting, but not works I automatically connect to.
 
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Kiramke | 1 other review | Jun 27, 2023 |

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