The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton

_You can like, or dislike, Anne Sexton. I won't describe her work (other reviewers have, and if you're here you're at least familiar), but say that if you've loved any poetry by Sexton, I highly recommend this book.It's organized, chronologically, by her books (and hence her life): each poem from each book is within this one, plus some previously unpublished poems. Each of her books--in this case, chapters--is thematically consistent: fairy tales (Sexton-style "homages"), "love poems," time in the institution, etc.You may not love every book/chapter, but the volume is a must-own. I don't see a need to buy "Love Poems," for example, or all or some of the rest of her books, when they're all in here - and each one not priced all that differently from this entirety. (It's also not oppressively long and hard to hold like some "complete" collections.) Within this book, if you don't connect to one, two, or any of her other books, you've got them at hand and while enjoying the material you do--be it institution or masturbation--you'll be familiar with the rest.Anne Sexton is my favorite poet, I admit, but when I reread a poem I far more often pick up this volume than the individual books. As well, the chronological organization of "Complete Poems" tells a story itself - Sexton's life through her confessional poetry. It becomes a memoir, of sorts. While reading, you can easily see the year of each book's/chapter's publication. And in this way, the volume becomes a story and a biography.

What first drew me to the poet Anne Sexton was a fragment I read from an essay in which she discussed the death of fellow American poet Sylvia Plath. What struck me was not just the disarming honesty of Sexton's remorse, but also the glimmer of a slightly less generous sentiment that belied her sadness. The precise nature of this sentiment became evident to me once I read Sexton's poem "Sylvia's Death," which revealed that Sexton's grief stemmed more from a profound sense of being left behind than from a sense of losing someone dear. In the poem, which is heartrending in its sincerity, Sexton mournfully addresses Plath: "Thief -- / how did you crawl into, / crawl down alone / into the death I wanted so badly and for so long, / the death we said we both outgrew, / the one we wore on our skinny breasts." What this passage and the entirety of her poem "Wanting to Die" reveal is just how clearly Sexton was aware of this death wish, this "suicide," as not only a disease of the mind, but a hunger -- an inexplicable and ever-present craving for permanent closure to consciousness. The overwhelming tone of "Sylvia's Death" is one of a woman who feels cheated out of something rightfully hers. Indeed, for Sexton, suicide was an inevitability -- she lived out her existence always with the awareness that she would end it by her own hand -- and many of the poems that made her name were a reflection of this very way of being. For those who deal with clinical depression as a way of life, the truth of the pain that rings from Sexton's verse is almost refreshing, and, in a sad sort of way, therapeutic.

I decided to write a review after reading the comments of another reviewer here, who stated in essence that Sexton really is For Women Only. On the contrary! Sexton, Plath (and just who is the better poet? Rosemary and I could argue that one for aeons and Still Not Decide), Whitman, Dickinson and Frank O'Hara are constants with me, each for different reasons. Certainly, Sexton's subject matter resonated deeply with me: depression, madness, memory, spirtuality, the body, sex, children. And each time I read her, I deepen in an appreciation for her true gift of stepping beyond the niceties, however unpleasant they may be. But now after reading and rereading her for more than twenty years, I am most amazed by her intertwining of deep, complicated emotion with incredibly rich and suggestive images and craft that is awe-inspiring. Just rip into one of these poems, particularly the early ones, and see just how tightly controlled they are, how perfect the rhyme schemes and rhythms, how just plain *right* and exact her images can be. Then read the "Transformations" poems--based on her beloved Grimms' Fairy Tales--for a deliciously black and wicked sense of humor. Or delve into the later poems for their bluntness ("Gods" is one of my favorites, but 45 Mercy Street and The Awful Rowing are just marvelous and bitter/sweet) and verve. Sexton just inspires me to try to write something that is just a fraction as rich and wonderful as "Some Foreign Letters" or "All My Pretty Ones." For Women Only? I DON'T *THINK* SO.

To read the poetry of Anne Sexton is to drown in the moment between sleeping and waking. Although Sexton's poems range in tone from gritty to incandescent, her content is consistently sharp, insightful, and stinging. She's one of those rare talents who manages to write with a purpose AND a passion. The first time I read her work, the thought that sprang to mind was: "Wow. She's writing what everyone else is only thinking." Sexton has a great capacity to verbalize the unspeakable, and she does it in such a way that it scars you and heals you simultaneously. Take, for example, her "Transformations" series (the re-written fairy tales.) Here we have incest, beauty, fear, love, repression, magic...all tangled between translucent words with spines of steel. To say I am in awe of this book is to only scratch the surface.

This book is truly wonderful, so rich, the imagry so acurate, the poems are funny, sad, powerful, angry, satirical - her best lines - "A Writer IS Esentially a Spy" - are as was Anais Nin's works- a spy in the house of life, not just love. Her fairy tales, especially Briar Rose, are worth the price of the book itself. From a possessed witch, to an 8 year old sitting quietly watching unsure Protestants try to sing at Easter, to a year of being insane, or to a woman searching endlessly for Mercy Street (one of my favorites) and never finding it - this is one of the best books of confessional or any other kind of poetry I have ever read. Thank you so much, Anne!!