Customer Reviews

The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton

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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chronologically, by her books (and hence her life): each poem from each book is within this one, plus some previously unpublished poems.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.

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.

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.

Anne Sexton takes amazing views in her poetry. I don't think I have read many poems that present subjects in such blunt and obscure ways. The one section of this book that I found most enjoyment in was the transformation poems. I had never before thought in that particular view, seeing my beloved characters take on different and unusual personalities. The collection of transformation poems allows the reader to look at our everyday fairytales in new, exciting, and bizarre ways. Her poems like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty" bring the happily ever after versions to a sudden halt or she steers them into a completely skewed scheme of thought. These poems caused me to think of all my favorite tales and catch the small details that remain hidden or to see the hidden story below the main plot. Her poetry has inspired some of my own writings and I do encourage anyone who is interested in poetry to look into Sexton. Her unique styles and images can bring forth new ideas and perspectives that many readers can over look. This book presents her blunt voice and unique imagery as well as one could hope for. I enjoy reading poets who can be direct and tell it like it is, not beat around the bush with fancy language. Sexton's voice is beautifully written in her poems; she has many strong words to say and share. Its easy to hear her passions and her stories of life, living in reality rather than in a land far, far away. There are many sections of poetry in this book, my favorite of course being the transformations. Her language is easy to understand, sometimes harsh, yet necessary. She also tells many narratives, depicting the lives of those around her and of ones far away. I admire Sexton's poems more than I do most others. I myself wish that I had her ability to write with such a creative and direct style. She conveys so much emotion and power through a few lines. I can only imagine what it was like to live with such vigor! Her confessional poems make truth-telling an art. She holds back nothing, provoking the conservativeness out of us and making us look at our own naked selves in ways we have feared to before so we couldn't see the consequences or find out the darkest truths about ourselves. Her images are vivid and bring the poems to life inside our minds. It would be a shame to study poetry and not pick up this book. Sexton gives so much to the poetic world through her honest creativity and imagination that its hard to try to write confessional poems without knowing her. I recommend this book of brilliant poems for anyone's repertoire.

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!!

I first heard of Anne Sexton when I was 14 and I had asked my aunt's boyfriend (a writer) to recommend a "good" poet. He hesitantly mentioned Anne Sexton and got a swift kick under the table from my aunt. I bought the book, and I loved it. I love the way she plays with language and explores the taboo and even the way she goes a little bit overboard. It's this fun communal voice, which is desperate and funny and beautiful and I love it. I would highly recommend this collection, which contains some of my favourite poetry.

A must for any Sexton fan, this new edition features a fine jacket designed by Steven Cooley. Exteriors aside, Sexton remains larger than life in her collection of poems. I have read her poetry for years and each time I find something new. A brilliant, remarkable woman whose words continue to matter.

Anne Sexton was an incredible poet her work is powerful, mesmerizing and thought provoking. Qualities that I definitely look for in great poetry and work that both genders can appreciate. But, part of what makes Sexton's poetry so powerful is the context under which it was written. She wrote deeply p personal poetry about women, about herself. About anger. About female anger. That is part of the reason her voice is so powerful she and Sylvia Plath were two women in the mid 20th century who were allowed to be angry, who reveled in their anger and claimed it. Her poems are not about abstract ideas, about Grecian Urns, but many of them about her personal experience as a woman, a wife a daughter. And people bought this. That was amazing, when you think about the roles of women at that time. Her collected work is interesting not only as great poetry but also as an amazing commentary about the status of women of her generation

All of Anne Sexton's books of poetry, by themselves, are very powerful works. From "To Bedlam and Part Way Back," which deals with near-madness and various other things (hence the title) to "The Awful Rowing Toward God," which is a moving account of Anne's struggles with spirituality, not to mention all the posthumously published works that are included, The Complete Poems shows, the progression of Anne's life and in a way tells the whole story, even though, being poems, it's impossible to know everything.