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Anne Sexton, 1928-1974By Courtney Helena KhanStudent, University of North Carolina at Pembroke Anne Sexton was known as a confessional poet, one who writes real or fictitious, intimate, and hidden details of one's life. She dealt with subjects that others found inappropriate for poetry. She wrote about topics that people faced every day, but didn't talk about openly. Some thought her topics were too personal to write about. Sexton did not consider herself a feminist, although she wrote poetry concerning feminist issues. Sexton wrote about abortion, menstruation, drug addiction, sex, religion, and suicidal tendencies. "Confessional poetry is a poetry of suffering," according to M.L. Rosenthal, as quoted in Caroline King Barnard Hill's book, Anne Sexton. "The suffering is generally unbearable because the poetry so often projects breakdown and paranoia." Rosenthal might have been speaking of Anne Sexton. Indeed, in the case of Sexton, readers may not be able to tell if the topics she wrote about really happened to her. Sexton's first book of poetry, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, published in 1960, dealt with the breakdown and poetic independence of her life. Her second book, All My Pretty Ones, published in 1962, was a continuation of her first book of poetry, but its major focus was her concern for the loss of loved ones that made her break down again. Her third book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Live or Die, published in 1966, dealt with a progress from sickness to health. Love Poems, published in 1969, also dealt with the loss of loved ones. There was a difference between Sexton's poetry from early years to her last poems. The difference is evident in her next book, Transformations, published in 1971. In her book Oedipus Anne: The Poetry of Anne Sexton, Diana Hume George notes a shift in Sexton's style, theme, and subject, pointing out that the author became more mythical and dark and that each of the poems turn on a magical transformation. The Book of Folly, published in 1972, went back to more of her usual themes. The Death Notebooks, published in1974, reverts to the mythical side of her early works. Sexton's last book, The Awful Rowing Toward God, published just before her death in 1975, shows some of the same themes and subject matter as earlier works, but with an added touch of joy. Anne Sexton's poetry was centered around her reactions to a life marked by drug and alcohol addiction, being in and out of mental institutions, and dealing with the deaths of many loved ones. Though confessional and sometimes hard to understand, her poetry dealt with issues to which we can all relate. Works Cited
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