Transformations [Paperback]

Anne Sexton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2001

These poem-stories are a strange retelling of seventeen Grimms fairy tales, including "Snow White," "Rumpelstiltskin," "Rapunzel," "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," "The Frog Prince," and "Red Riding Hood." Astonishingly, they are as wholly personal as Anne Sexton's most intimate poems. "Her metaphoric strength has never been greater -- really funny, among other things, a dark, dark laughter" (C.K. Williams).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A funny, mad, witty, frightening, charming, haunting book."

The New York Times

"These poem-stories are a strange retelling of seventeen Grimms fairy tales, including “Snow White,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Rapunzel,” “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” “The Frog Prince,” and “Red Riding Hood.” Astonishingly, they are as wholly personal as Anne Sexton’s most intimate poems. “Her metaphoric strength has never been greater — really funny, among other things, a dark, dark laughter.” -- C. K. Williams

"A vivid, astonishing, blood-curdling book." -- Stanley Kunitz

"God love her." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

About the Author

Anne Sexton (1928-1974), the author of ten collections of poems, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1967.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; None edition (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061808343X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618083435
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #49 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Poetry

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dark and Lovely Exploration of Fairy Tales, April 28, 2003

By 

Christopher Schmitz (Rocky River, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformations (Paperback)

I have Anne Sexton's complete works, and this book rises above the rest. The fairy tale framework compels more structure and discipline from a poet accustomed to rambling (but often brilliant) confessional observation. It is, in my estimation, her finest work.

Her take on "Snow White" refuses to establish heroines or villains. The girl is a lovely virgin, "cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper...lips like Vin du Rhone." The jealous queen, still beautiful at middle age but fearing that time isn't on her side and informed by her mirror she's no longer "the fairest of them all," tries to kill her. For this, she is punished by torture. The twist here is that Sexton makes it clear that some day the virgin girl will meet the queen's fate: "Meanwhile Snow White held court,/ rolling her china-blue eyes open and shut/ and sometimes referring to her mirror/ as women do."

The lesbian implications of "Rapunzel" are brought to the fore, and the transvestite deception of "Little Red Riding Hood" is remarked on. Sexton crashes the dreamy romance of Cinderella with the mundane reality of marriage. "Happily ever after" is contrasted with "diapers...arguing...getting a middle-aged spread." The Freudian power of mother is accented in the poet's take on "Hansel and Gretel"; Sexton brings out dark implications of child murder and pedophilia that the original tale merely glosses.

Twenty years before Robert Bly tackled the "Iron John" fairy tale, Sexton put her spin on it, stressing the main character's cannibalism and outcast status. She compares the hairy wild man to a string of deeply troubled characters from her imagination. It is here where her poetry reaches the peak of its intensity: "A lunatic wearing that strait jacket/ like a sleeveless sweater, singing to the wall like Muzak.../ And if they stripped him bare/ he would fasten his hands around your throat/ After that he would take your corpse/ and deposit his sperm in three orifices./ You know, I know,/ you'd run away."

Sexton's deep-delving into childhood stories, unearthing the very real and plausible taboos they skirt, is refreshing. Her anachronistic use of modern language (Muzak, for instance) is artful and effective. The best thing about this book, however, is that so much madness and sadness is surmised from such timeless and appealing stories. Happy endings are left intact but with a shadow cast over them. Sexton is a poet of the dark--with no one to save her "from the awful babble of that calling."

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully-crafted fairy tale variations, June 13, 2000

By 

belladena - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformations (Paperback)

In all my readings of fairy tale variations, this has to be one of the best. Anne Sexton takes a grim and twisted approach to the already grim and twisted versions of the Grimm Brothers.

Of course, these poems are simply an extension of Anne Sexton's already established confessional form, but poetry is, first and foremost, an expression of society. These poems fail to remain part of Sexton's inner turmoil. Rather, they mock society and the roles that women are traditionally placed within fairy tales. Anne Sexton, in an example here, uses anachronisms to reach her audience, making references to popular culture.

The Queen Cried two pails of sea water. She was as persistent as a Jehovah's Witness.

Anne Sexton, "Rumpelstiltskin"

Although Sexton's poems are not suitable for an audience of children, they do serve as interesting, even necessary reading, once a child has matured and read beyond the traditional fairy tales that are `suitable' for kids.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sexton as poet-storyteller, retelling dark fairytales with modern details and personal themes, December 27, 2005

By 

Renee "poet" (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformations (Paperback)

In this remarkable collection of poems, Anne Sexton offers readers seventeen transformations of classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales. As she makes clear in the first poem "The Gold Key", Sexton assumes the persona of the storyteller for this collection, calling herself a "middle-aged witch" with "my face in a book and my mouth wide, ready to tell you a story or two." This device allows her to write about intensely personal topics, such as a sexually abusive father, through the detached voice of a storyteller. The use of fairy tales also provides Sexton with a shared cultural framework that enables her to communicate her own experiences and perspectives in a universal language that readers already understand intimately.

Fairytales have a power few of us realize. The stories shape many of our fantasies as children; they also condition us to accept traditional gender roles as we grow up. I believe that Anne Sexton understood their power and influence. She brilliantly tapped into that power and transformed the tales in a way that forces the reader to look at them with fresh eyes. Before launching into the tales themselves, Sexton set the themes of the stories in a modern or personal context. These connections, along with the interlacing of 20th century details (like soda pop and jockstraps) and her use of modern syntax in the fairy tales made their subversive commentary on the burdens and fears of women in a society shaped by male dominance startlingly clear.

In her transformed tales, Sexton examines the female archetypes they depict: the docile virgin, the wicked stepmother, the aging witch. She also sheds an illuminating, feminist light on the themes of female competition and the idea of happily ever after which pop up often in fairytales. It is significant that Sexton uses the gritty Grimm versions of the tales, instead of the child-friendly Disney versions we grew up with. Their original form reveals the subversive nature and insightful symbolism of the fairy tales, many of which were crafted by women.

While this collection is a departure from Sexton's typical confessional style, the poems of "Transformations" are unabashedly naked and intimately introspective--a wondrous achievement by one of our greatest poets.