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All My Pretty Ones
In ‘All My Pretty Ones,’ Sexton weaves familial history, loss, and forgiveness into vivid tapestries, exploring complexities with haunting imagery and deep emotion.
68 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1962
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About the author
Anne Sexton
149 books2,494 followersAnne Sexton once told a journalist that her fans thought she got better, but actually, she just became a poet. These words are characteristic of a talented poet that received therapy for years, but committed suicide in spite of this. The poetry fed her art, but it also imprisoned her in a way.
Her parents didn’t expect much of her academically, and after completing her schooling at Rogers Hall, she went to a finishing school in Boston. Anne met her husband, Kayo (Alfred Muller Sexton II), in 1948 by correspondence. Her mother advised her to elope after she thought she might be pregnant. Anne and Kayo got married in 1948 in North Carolina. After the honeymoon Kayo started working at his father-in-law’s wool business.
In 1953 Anne gave birth to her first-born, Linda Gray. Two years later Linda’s sister, Joyce Ladd, was born. But Anne couldn’t cope with the pressure of two small children over and above Kayo’s frequent absence (due to work). Shortly after Joy was born, Anne was admitted to Westwood Lodge where she was treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne (and six months later, her son, Dr. Martin Orne, took over). The original diagnosis was for post-natal depression, but the psychologists later decided that Anne suffered from depression of biological nature.
While she was receiving psychiatric treatment, Anne started writing poetry. It all started after another suicide attempt, when Orne came to her and told her that she still has a purpose in life. At that stage she was convinced that she could only become a prostitute. Orne showed her another talent that she had, and her first poetry appeared in print in the January of 1957. She wrote a huge amount of poetry that was published in a dozen poetry books. In 1967 she became the proud recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Live or Die (1966).
In March 1972 Anne and Kayo got divorced. After this a desperate kind of loneliness took over her life. Her addiction to pills and alcohol worsened. Without Kayo the house was very quiet, the children were at college and most of Anne’s friends were avoiding her because they could no longer sympathize with her growing problems. Her poetry started playing such a major role in her life that conflicts were written out, rather than being faced. Anne didn’t mention a word to Kayo about her intention to get divorced. He knew that she desperately needed him, but her poems, and her real feelings toward him, put it differently. Kayo talks about it in an interview as follows: “... I honestly don’t know, never have known, what her real, driving motive was in the divorce. Which is another reason why it absolutely drove me into the floor like a nail when she did it.”
On 4 October 1974 she put on her mother’s old fur coat before, glass of vodka in hand, she climbed into her car, turned the key and died of monodioxide inhalation. She once told Orne that “I feel like my mother whenever I put it [the fur coat] on”. Her oldest daughter, Linda, was appointed as literary executor and we have her to thank for the three poetry books that appeared posthumously.
Her parents didn’t expect much of her academically, and after completing her schooling at Rogers Hall, she went to a finishing school in Boston. Anne met her husband, Kayo (Alfred Muller Sexton II), in 1948 by correspondence. Her mother advised her to elope after she thought she might be pregnant. Anne and Kayo got married in 1948 in North Carolina. After the honeymoon Kayo started working at his father-in-law’s wool business.
In 1953 Anne gave birth to her first-born, Linda Gray. Two years later Linda’s sister, Joyce Ladd, was born. But Anne couldn’t cope with the pressure of two small children over and above Kayo’s frequent absence (due to work). Shortly after Joy was born, Anne was admitted to Westwood Lodge where she was treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne (and six months later, her son, Dr. Martin Orne, took over). The original diagnosis was for post-natal depression, but the psychologists later decided that Anne suffered from depression of biological nature.
While she was receiving psychiatric treatment, Anne started writing poetry. It all started after another suicide attempt, when Orne came to her and told her that she still has a purpose in life. At that stage she was convinced that she could only become a prostitute. Orne showed her another talent that she had, and her first poetry appeared in print in the January of 1957. She wrote a huge amount of poetry that was published in a dozen poetry books. In 1967 she became the proud recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Live or Die (1966).
In March 1972 Anne and Kayo got divorced. After this a desperate kind of loneliness took over her life. Her addiction to pills and alcohol worsened. Without Kayo the house was very quiet, the children were at college and most of Anne’s friends were avoiding her because they could no longer sympathize with her growing problems. Her poetry started playing such a major role in her life that conflicts were written out, rather than being faced. Anne didn’t mention a word to Kayo about her intention to get divorced. He knew that she desperately needed him, but her poems, and her real feelings toward him, put it differently. Kayo talks about it in an interview as follows: “... I honestly don’t know, never have known, what her real, driving motive was in the divorce. Which is another reason why it absolutely drove me into the floor like a nail when she did it.”
On 4 October 1974 she put on her mother’s old fur coat before, glass of vodka in hand, she climbed into her car, turned the key and died of monodioxide inhalation. She once told Orne that “I feel like my mother whenever I put it [the fur coat] on”. Her oldest daughter, Linda, was appointed as literary executor and we have her to thank for the three poetry books that appeared posthumously.
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September 29, 2019
Anne's Sexton's second volume, published in 1962, is a classic of 20th Century poetry. She has absorbed the influence of Robert Lowell's groundbreaking Life Studies and found her voice: ironic, agnostic, mercilessly honest, yet haunted by guilt and filled with a hunger for love both human and divine. It is these poems--and the work Sylvia Plath was doing at the same time, the poems printed posthumously in Ariel (1965)--which would guide the movement of American verse for years to come. These poems have been so influential that, although it is hard not to see how good they are, it is easy to forget--or miss--how revolutionary they were at the time.
The subject matter is daring, the language spare, the metaphors continually surprising. The first three of the book's five sections--poems about her parent's deaths, a lost love affair, an abortion, and her relationship with her daughter--are particularly fine. Sample a few: "The Truth the Dead Know," "Lament," "The Starry Night," "The Dwarf Heart," "The Abortion." Artful rhetoric, sincere song, and strangled cry have seldom been so perfectly united.
I'll let you discover these fine poems yourself, and instead end with this small, sardonic feminist utterance, years ahead of its time:
Housewife
Some women marry houses.
It's another kind of skin; it has a heart,
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day,
faithfully washing herself down.
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah
into their fleshy mothers.
A woman is her mother.
That's the main thing.
January 13, 2018
"I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept
for three years, telling all she does not say
of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,
she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day
with your blood, will I drink down your glass
of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years
goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.
Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you"
My first full reading of Sexton after picking off a few poems in the past, this was an impressive collection showcasing her innovative skill at weaving words, images and rhythm to gripping effect in its description of sorting through personal effects after the death of a loved one. There is some quirky humour here and there but essentially these are built around melancholy and acceptance. One of the saddest poems, 'The Truth The Dead Know' reveals the poet's feelings as she leaves church after the death of her father. The flowing structure of the poem and the resigned sense of finality is breathtakingly moving. The inherent beauty of life and splendour is joined at the hip with the the seemingly endless cycle of suffering, death and calamity. Her poetry is careful to never appear too cheerful, yet it can never fully condemn the heart's need for gladness.
There seems to be a desperate loathing for hope in her writing, yet the writing itself becomes redemption. Sexton longs to touch the soft and sweet underbelly of existence, but consistently runs her hands over the prickling hairs on the back of the beast. Just as the separation of twins joined by birth cannot undo that certain duality unknown by those born alone. Like Sylvia Plath in some ways, but Anne Sexton seems to carefully choose which way to shift her weight as she sits on the fence, whereas Plath is already on the wrong side, unable to climb back up. My faves were, 'All My Pretty Ones' 'In The Deep Museum' and 'A Curse Against Elegies', it is a measure of her strength as a poet, you don't just read the lines, you read between them. This work not only depicts sorrow, but the tentative steps towards a light, shining off in the distance. Essential reading for Sexton fans.
for three years, telling all she does not say
of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,
she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day
with your blood, will I drink down your glass
of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years
goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.
Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you"
My first full reading of Sexton after picking off a few poems in the past, this was an impressive collection showcasing her innovative skill at weaving words, images and rhythm to gripping effect in its description of sorting through personal effects after the death of a loved one. There is some quirky humour here and there but essentially these are built around melancholy and acceptance. One of the saddest poems, 'The Truth The Dead Know' reveals the poet's feelings as she leaves church after the death of her father. The flowing structure of the poem and the resigned sense of finality is breathtakingly moving. The inherent beauty of life and splendour is joined at the hip with the the seemingly endless cycle of suffering, death and calamity. Her poetry is careful to never appear too cheerful, yet it can never fully condemn the heart's need for gladness.
There seems to be a desperate loathing for hope in her writing, yet the writing itself becomes redemption. Sexton longs to touch the soft and sweet underbelly of existence, but consistently runs her hands over the prickling hairs on the back of the beast. Just as the separation of twins joined by birth cannot undo that certain duality unknown by those born alone. Like Sylvia Plath in some ways, but Anne Sexton seems to carefully choose which way to shift her weight as she sits on the fence, whereas Plath is already on the wrong side, unable to climb back up. My faves were, 'All My Pretty Ones' 'In The Deep Museum' and 'A Curse Against Elegies', it is a measure of her strength as a poet, you don't just read the lines, you read between them. This work not only depicts sorrow, but the tentative steps towards a light, shining off in the distance. Essential reading for Sexton fans.
February 9, 2017
The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars
oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die
Like my beloved Sylvia Plath once said "Surely the great use of poetry is its pleasure" and I cannot agree more. Confessing your deep thoughts or your feelings while writing poetry is greater than just writing a simple good poem . Many people will disagree but I personally like raw, ironic, dark poems that don't need sugar coating or too many symbols. I like poems that aren't filled with lyricism.
Some of Sexton's poems are more bittersweet than others. Most of them though are honest, sharp.. The theme of death is so familiar yet so charming.
She even wrote a poem about abortion! Her poetry I guess was her salvation? Anyway, I liked All my pretty ones
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars
oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die
Like my beloved Sylvia Plath once said "Surely the great use of poetry is its pleasure" and I cannot agree more. Confessing your deep thoughts or your feelings while writing poetry is greater than just writing a simple good poem . Many people will disagree but I personally like raw, ironic, dark poems that don't need sugar coating or too many symbols. I like poems that aren't filled with lyricism.
Some of Sexton's poems are more bittersweet than others. Most of them though are honest, sharp.. The theme of death is so familiar yet so charming.
She even wrote a poem about abortion! Her poetry I guess was her salvation? Anyway, I liked All my pretty ones
January 9, 2015
Anne Sexton’s second collection of poems, All My Pretty Ones, takes its title from MacDuff’s speech (Act IV, scene iii) in Macbeth, when he learns of the murder of his wife and children. Outside of scripture, it’s probably one of the most heart wrenching passages in all of literature. To further underscore this, Sexton also included an excerpt from the speech as an epigram for the collection:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What! All my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop? . . .
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
It’s an interesting choice, since what makes the passage even more powerful is the harsh line that follows:
Did heaven look on, and not take their part?
Macduff then goes on to accuse himself of being a sinner, and how he must have deserved such heartbreak, but you tend to tune that out, since the Big Question is now out of the bag. Why does God allow such things? In Sexton’s case, the matter is Incest. In her previous collection, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, I picked up a bit of this, but not enough to make me comment on it since I wanted to make sure, biographically, that there was something to this suggestion (and there is). The poem I have in mind is “The Moss of His Skin,” which is, from beginning to end, totally disturbing.
It was only important
To smile and hold still,
To lie down beside him
And to rest awhile,
To be folded up together
As if we were silk,
To sink from the eyes of mother
And not to talk.
The black room took us
Like a cave or a mouth
Or an indoor belly.
I held my breath
And daddy was there,
His thumbs, his fat skull,
His teeth, his hair growing
Like a field or a shawl.
I lay by the moss
Of his skin until
It grew strange.
That’s about 2/3s of the poem. I shouldn’t be spending so much time on a previous collection’s poem, but I’m now detecting in Sexton, poem by poem, collection by collection, a need to ratchet things up. This is probably where the haters come in with the charge of exhibitionism. I think that (so far at least) is a harsh judgment (these are great poems), but I do have to wonder what it must have been like to read Sexton as she lived, rather than looking back on the career of a suicide poet? The stuff she was writing about, mental issues, abortion, sex, etc., must have been, given Sexton’s frankness, explosive at the time. It also must have been, if you were a fan, intoxicating at first. But as Sexton went on and on (she was fairly prolific), just from glancing at poem titles and poems in the Collected edition, you get the sense that she’s trying to outdo herself with each new outing. At some point, you just know that creatively the wheels are going to come off.
Getting back to All My Pretty Ones, the collection opens with the death of Sexton’s parents. “The Truth the Dead Know,” which makes for a powerful start.
Gone, I say and walk from church,
Refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
Letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
I don’t think there’s any danger of Sexton being brave – unless simple survival is what she means, then, once again, the poet is telegraphing what is to come. Instead, it is a poem about brittleness, barely hanging on.
…………I cultivate
Myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
Where the sea swings in like an iron gate
And we touch. In another country people die.
The closing imagery reminds me (either unconvincingly or damning, I’m not sure which) of Luke 9:60’s “Let the dead bury the dead,” but with more than a hint of morbid curiosity:
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
In their stone boats. They are more like stone
Than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
To blessed , throat, eye and knucklebone.
(Seamus Heaney must love that last line.) The following poem, “All My Pretty Ones” has Sexton addressing her father, as she goes through diaries, memories, etc., while the whole time skirting something darker, but is strongly hinted at in poem’s closing lines:
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.
Of what? Well, that comes out a bit more as the collection unfolds. There are of course other things going on in the collection, one of which is Sexton’s religious feelings. I suppose at this point in Sexton’s life, with the death of her parents (following within months of each other), she hoped (I’m guessing here) that forgiveness along with their passing would provide some closure, some peace. But it’s hard not to see Sexton as someone so broken up inside that getting traction, religious or otherwise, was next to impossible. All of which reinforces her remarkable achievement as a poet. In the end, it was all she had, and even that would not be enough.
The collection’s second section (and the best), is also the most paradoxical. It starts out with a quote from the Catholic theologian, Roman Guardini, regarding the true nature of Christ (as opposed to “pallid humanitarianism”). I don’t know where the quote comes from, but Guardini did write a powerful meditation on Christ in 1957, called The Lord (Flannery O’Conner was very high on it). Since Guardini’s book was making the rounds among the Catholic literati, I can only assume that Sexton (I’m not sure she was Catholic) read it as well. But what follows is an unusual selection of poems, one of which is the much anthologized “The Abortion.” “The Abortion,” while a good poem, gains tremendous power, once read within the context of this section. The haunting, hallucinogenic imagery of the poem is reinforced by its placement within the section. (From what I’ve read so far, Sexton was a master at poem placement in her collections.)
The section’s final poem, “Ghosts,” circles back, more explicitly than any poem so far, to the issue of incest. It’s a weird poem, and you can’t help but be reminded of Shakespeare’s use of ghosts in his plays (Macbeth, Richard III. Sexton’s ghosts, all grotesque, are her mother:
Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract or pale,
their breasts as limp as pale fish.
…
who come, waving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.
Her father:
Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
Fat, white-bellied men,
Wearing their genitals like rags.
Wow. Dante would have loved that description. And finally, a child, I assume, at least in part, the aborted one, given the imagery Sexton chooses, but also Sexton herself, impossibly conflicted, damaged, her innocence lost:
some ghosts are children.
not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.
I’ve gone on too long, but Sexton does draw you in to depths upon depths, which leave you feeling, by collection's end, that you’ve only scratched the surface of this disturbed but brilliant poet. Highly recommended. (Note: I read this collection as it appears in The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton.
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What! All my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop? . . .
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
It’s an interesting choice, since what makes the passage even more powerful is the harsh line that follows:
Did heaven look on, and not take their part?
Macduff then goes on to accuse himself of being a sinner, and how he must have deserved such heartbreak, but you tend to tune that out, since the Big Question is now out of the bag. Why does God allow such things? In Sexton’s case, the matter is Incest. In her previous collection, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, I picked up a bit of this, but not enough to make me comment on it since I wanted to make sure, biographically, that there was something to this suggestion (and there is). The poem I have in mind is “The Moss of His Skin,” which is, from beginning to end, totally disturbing.
It was only important
To smile and hold still,
To lie down beside him
And to rest awhile,
To be folded up together
As if we were silk,
To sink from the eyes of mother
And not to talk.
The black room took us
Like a cave or a mouth
Or an indoor belly.
I held my breath
And daddy was there,
His thumbs, his fat skull,
His teeth, his hair growing
Like a field or a shawl.
I lay by the moss
Of his skin until
It grew strange.
That’s about 2/3s of the poem. I shouldn’t be spending so much time on a previous collection’s poem, but I’m now detecting in Sexton, poem by poem, collection by collection, a need to ratchet things up. This is probably where the haters come in with the charge of exhibitionism. I think that (so far at least) is a harsh judgment (these are great poems), but I do have to wonder what it must have been like to read Sexton as she lived, rather than looking back on the career of a suicide poet? The stuff she was writing about, mental issues, abortion, sex, etc., must have been, given Sexton’s frankness, explosive at the time. It also must have been, if you were a fan, intoxicating at first. But as Sexton went on and on (she was fairly prolific), just from glancing at poem titles and poems in the Collected edition, you get the sense that she’s trying to outdo herself with each new outing. At some point, you just know that creatively the wheels are going to come off.
Getting back to All My Pretty Ones, the collection opens with the death of Sexton’s parents. “The Truth the Dead Know,” which makes for a powerful start.
Gone, I say and walk from church,
Refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
Letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
I don’t think there’s any danger of Sexton being brave – unless simple survival is what she means, then, once again, the poet is telegraphing what is to come. Instead, it is a poem about brittleness, barely hanging on.
…………I cultivate
Myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
Where the sea swings in like an iron gate
And we touch. In another country people die.
The closing imagery reminds me (either unconvincingly or damning, I’m not sure which) of Luke 9:60’s “Let the dead bury the dead,” but with more than a hint of morbid curiosity:
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
In their stone boats. They are more like stone
Than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
To blessed , throat, eye and knucklebone.
(Seamus Heaney must love that last line.) The following poem, “All My Pretty Ones” has Sexton addressing her father, as she goes through diaries, memories, etc., while the whole time skirting something darker, but is strongly hinted at in poem’s closing lines:
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.
Of what? Well, that comes out a bit more as the collection unfolds. There are of course other things going on in the collection, one of which is Sexton’s religious feelings. I suppose at this point in Sexton’s life, with the death of her parents (following within months of each other), she hoped (I’m guessing here) that forgiveness along with their passing would provide some closure, some peace. But it’s hard not to see Sexton as someone so broken up inside that getting traction, religious or otherwise, was next to impossible. All of which reinforces her remarkable achievement as a poet. In the end, it was all she had, and even that would not be enough.
The collection’s second section (and the best), is also the most paradoxical. It starts out with a quote from the Catholic theologian, Roman Guardini, regarding the true nature of Christ (as opposed to “pallid humanitarianism”). I don’t know where the quote comes from, but Guardini did write a powerful meditation on Christ in 1957, called The Lord (Flannery O’Conner was very high on it). Since Guardini’s book was making the rounds among the Catholic literati, I can only assume that Sexton (I’m not sure she was Catholic) read it as well. But what follows is an unusual selection of poems, one of which is the much anthologized “The Abortion.” “The Abortion,” while a good poem, gains tremendous power, once read within the context of this section. The haunting, hallucinogenic imagery of the poem is reinforced by its placement within the section. (From what I’ve read so far, Sexton was a master at poem placement in her collections.)
The section’s final poem, “Ghosts,” circles back, more explicitly than any poem so far, to the issue of incest. It’s a weird poem, and you can’t help but be reminded of Shakespeare’s use of ghosts in his plays (Macbeth, Richard III. Sexton’s ghosts, all grotesque, are her mother:
Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract or pale,
their breasts as limp as pale fish.
…
who come, waving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.
Her father:
Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
Fat, white-bellied men,
Wearing their genitals like rags.
Wow. Dante would have loved that description. And finally, a child, I assume, at least in part, the aborted one, given the imagery Sexton chooses, but also Sexton herself, impossibly conflicted, damaged, her innocence lost:
some ghosts are children.
not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.
I’ve gone on too long, but Sexton does draw you in to depths upon depths, which leave you feeling, by collection's end, that you’ve only scratched the surface of this disturbed but brilliant poet. Highly recommended. (Note: I read this collection as it appears in The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton.
January 24, 2025
If I were sick, I'd be a child,
tucked in under the woolens, sipping my broth.
As it is,
the days are not worth grabbing or lying about.
Nevertheless, you are the only one
that I can bother with this matter.
I have again relied upon Frau Sexton for an apt detour. This tight collection casts a vision of mortality, health and those biological bonds that some call family. I was hooked or perhaps pierced--skewered by tumbling metaphors and a shattering dawn of nostalgia. We travel form the cemetery to the surgical suite, we are burnished by childhood summers and are awakened by our own offspring. The telephone hectors.
I doubt this will fuel conversations with my own siblings or unearth a notion of confession to the Divine. What it did was nurture.
tucked in under the woolens, sipping my broth.
As it is,
the days are not worth grabbing or lying about.
Nevertheless, you are the only one
that I can bother with this matter.
I have again relied upon Frau Sexton for an apt detour. This tight collection casts a vision of mortality, health and those biological bonds that some call family. I was hooked or perhaps pierced--skewered by tumbling metaphors and a shattering dawn of nostalgia. We travel form the cemetery to the surgical suite, we are burnished by childhood summers and are awakened by our own offspring. The telephone hectors.
I doubt this will fuel conversations with my own siblings or unearth a notion of confession to the Divine. What it did was nurture.
August 26, 2024
Qué buena que es Sexton. La naturalidad con la que mi mente desglosa todos/los versos/que están/escritos así y los arma en forma de estrofa; es lo peor de la edición de Lumen. Por suerte Sexton no juega mucho con el orden visual del poema.
No puedo parar de leerla. Este es su segundo poemario, y el más famoso. En principio, es mucho más confesional y cruda, todo lo que ella advertía en sus poemas anteriores ahora es.
Uno lee un poema y tiene la sensación de haber leído algo muy sólido, y es que están armados como casitas. Así empiezan algunos:
"In dreams
the same bad dream goes on. Like some gigantic German toy
the house has been rebuilt
upon it's kelly green lawn."
"We are fishermen in a flat scene.
All day long we are in love with the water."
Y lo que más me llama la atención es la relación entre lo confesional y el punto de vista. Porque uno esperaría que la confesión viniese de Sexton misma, pero el punto de vista está puesto hasta en la flor de una boda ("Come friend,/I have an old story to tell you—//Listen./Sit down beside me and listen./My face is red with sorrow/and my breasts are made of straw").
The Hangman
Reasonable, reasonable, reasonable…we walked through
ten different homes, they always call them homes,
to find one ward where they like the babies who
looks like you. Each time, the eyes that no one owns
watched us intently, these visitors from the street
that moves outside. They watched, but did not know
about time, there in the house where babies never grow.
My boy, though innocent and mild
your brain is obsolete.
Those six times that you almost died
the newest medicine and the family fuss
pulled you back again. Supplied
with air, against my guilty wish,
your clogged pipes cried
like Lazarus.
At first your mother said…why me! why me!
But she got over that. Now she enjoys
her dull daily care and her hectic bravery.
You do not love anyone. She is not growing a boy;
she is enlarging a stone to wear around her neck.
Some nights in our bed her mouth snores at me coldly
or when she turns, her kisses walking out of the sea,
I think of the bad stories,
the monster and the wreck.
I think of that Scandinavian tale
that tells of the king who killed nine
sons in turn. Slaughtered wholesale,
they had one life in common
as you have mine,
my son.
No puedo parar de leerla. Este es su segundo poemario, y el más famoso. En principio, es mucho más confesional y cruda, todo lo que ella advertía en sus poemas anteriores ahora es.
Uno lee un poema y tiene la sensación de haber leído algo muy sólido, y es que están armados como casitas. Así empiezan algunos:
"In dreams
the same bad dream goes on. Like some gigantic German toy
the house has been rebuilt
upon it's kelly green lawn."
"We are fishermen in a flat scene.
All day long we are in love with the water."
Y lo que más me llama la atención es la relación entre lo confesional y el punto de vista. Porque uno esperaría que la confesión viniese de Sexton misma, pero el punto de vista está puesto hasta en la flor de una boda ("Come friend,/I have an old story to tell you—//Listen./Sit down beside me and listen./My face is red with sorrow/and my breasts are made of straw").
The Hangman
Reasonable, reasonable, reasonable…we walked through
ten different homes, they always call them homes,
to find one ward where they like the babies who
looks like you. Each time, the eyes that no one owns
watched us intently, these visitors from the street
that moves outside. They watched, but did not know
about time, there in the house where babies never grow.
My boy, though innocent and mild
your brain is obsolete.
Those six times that you almost died
the newest medicine and the family fuss
pulled you back again. Supplied
with air, against my guilty wish,
your clogged pipes cried
like Lazarus.
At first your mother said…why me! why me!
But she got over that. Now she enjoys
her dull daily care and her hectic bravery.
You do not love anyone. She is not growing a boy;
she is enlarging a stone to wear around her neck.
Some nights in our bed her mouth snores at me coldly
or when she turns, her kisses walking out of the sea,
I think of the bad stories,
the monster and the wreck.
I think of that Scandinavian tale
that tells of the king who killed nine
sons in turn. Slaughtered wholesale,
they had one life in common
as you have mine,
my son.
March 13, 2008
What I love most about Anne Sexton’s poetry is the rambunctious voice she constructs that gives the reader an unsteady feeling while reading her work. Whether tackling the brave subject of abortion or examining the depths of her isolation, the reader never knows if we will find Sexton gravely “wondering how anything fragile survives” (20) or teasing how “It would be pleasant to be drunk” (67) through her troubling bouts with depression. Either way, she is adept at grabbing and holding our attention, challenging the reader to discern when she has “invented a lie” (66) or when she is using her “born” ability for “confessing” (23).
Sexton’s intelligence shines through in the subtle ways she criticizes the male the authority figures in her life. In the poem “The Operation,” in which she details a surgery to remove a tumor from her uterus or ovaries (the same cancer that killed her mother), the “mighty doctor” is depicted as cavalier and condescending about this serious procedure and recovery, telling her in the end to “run along now,/[her] stomach laced up like a football/for the game” (12-16). This ending simile is brilliant, as it is also a perfect comment on the frame of mind Sexton sees many men existing in, that of competition and winning, and shows how it contributes to her feelings of isolation and inferiority.
Overall, the structure of this book impresses me most. Each section has an easily recognizable theme, and each poem within them stands strongly on its own. Because of this tight organization and the impeccable skill in each piece, Anne Sexton was able to stretch the boundaries of what women could right about in 1950’s and 1960’s. It would have been a gift to see what she would have written if the side of her that was playful, bright and a keen observer of society would have triumphed over the part that was “never loving” (65) of herself.
Sexton’s intelligence shines through in the subtle ways she criticizes the male the authority figures in her life. In the poem “The Operation,” in which she details a surgery to remove a tumor from her uterus or ovaries (the same cancer that killed her mother), the “mighty doctor” is depicted as cavalier and condescending about this serious procedure and recovery, telling her in the end to “run along now,/[her] stomach laced up like a football/for the game” (12-16). This ending simile is brilliant, as it is also a perfect comment on the frame of mind Sexton sees many men existing in, that of competition and winning, and shows how it contributes to her feelings of isolation and inferiority.
Overall, the structure of this book impresses me most. Each section has an easily recognizable theme, and each poem within them stands strongly on its own. Because of this tight organization and the impeccable skill in each piece, Anne Sexton was able to stretch the boundaries of what women could right about in 1950’s and 1960’s. It would have been a gift to see what she would have written if the side of her that was playful, bright and a keen observer of society would have triumphed over the part that was “never loving” (65) of herself.
March 25, 2024
we lived in sin in too many rooms. now you live in ohio
February 8, 2022
3.5 stars ✧
❝A woman who writes feels too much,—The Black Art
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.
Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hates,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.❞
April 8, 2019
Anne Sexton is swiftly becoming one of my favourite poets. She starts off this collection with a Kafka quote which is an instant win for me. She sure had an impeccable taste in writers.
This collection was directly influenced by the recent deaths of her parents whilst she was writing it, and so death and loss are the main themes which are featured. Other topics include alienation, mental health, religion and abortion.
If you’re looking for something which is raw and melancholic then this is definitely the collection that you should pick up.
This collection was directly influenced by the recent deaths of her parents whilst she was writing it, and so death and loss are the main themes which are featured. Other topics include alienation, mental health, religion and abortion.
If you’re looking for something which is raw and melancholic then this is definitely the collection that you should pick up.
November 6, 2019
31 poems in this collection. Highlights ~ "all my pretty ones" "the starry night" "the operation" "the abortion" " with mercy for the greedy" "in the deep museum" " ghosts" "the fortress" " the house" "doors, doors, doors" "the black art" and "letter written during a january northeaster".
December 27, 2022
honestly OBSESSED gave me that rare poetry adrenaline hideunderbed core
Read
April 28, 2024Because of Backlisted, I’ve now read two confessional poets: John Berryman and Anne Sexton.
Based on this slim volume - her second published in 1962* - Sexton is the more accessible of the two. What they have in common is a bare-it-all approach, a courage to explore difficult topics, especially mental illness (both Berryman and Sexton, tragically, took their own lives). It was new at the time - thus the confessional tag - and still feels urgent and present; the passing of decades has not dulled these poems.
All My Pretty Ones deals with the loss of Sexton’s parents, her faith, motherhood (which is a fraught topic given Sexton’s abuse of her daughter, which was revealed after her death) and the frailties (though I don’t think that’s the right word) of a woman’s body (On this topic, “The Operation” stands out). There’s a frankness to Sexton’s work, some of it dark, some of it funny, some of it transcendent, some of it small and mundane.
I used to avoid poetry like the plague. This year has put paid to that, and I’m all the better for it.
*By the by, All My Pretty Ones is well and truly out of print. I sourced my copy on ABE.
Based on this slim volume - her second published in 1962* - Sexton is the more accessible of the two. What they have in common is a bare-it-all approach, a courage to explore difficult topics, especially mental illness (both Berryman and Sexton, tragically, took their own lives). It was new at the time - thus the confessional tag - and still feels urgent and present; the passing of decades has not dulled these poems.
All My Pretty Ones deals with the loss of Sexton’s parents, her faith, motherhood (which is a fraught topic given Sexton’s abuse of her daughter, which was revealed after her death) and the frailties (though I don’t think that’s the right word) of a woman’s body (On this topic, “The Operation” stands out). There’s a frankness to Sexton’s work, some of it dark, some of it funny, some of it transcendent, some of it small and mundane.
I used to avoid poetry like the plague. This year has put paid to that, and I’m all the better for it.
*By the by, All My Pretty Ones is well and truly out of print. I sourced my copy on ABE.
September 11, 2024
This was Anne Sexton’s second collection of poetry, published in 1962. It contains 31 poems. As I usually do when reading poetry, I took one poem a week, read it for seven days. Each time I would enter the poem like a first time in a foreign land. Each subsequent day its meaning would open up to me and become clear.
These poems cover the deaths of both her parents, remembrances from childhood, an operation, an abortion, thoughts on religion, her husband, and her first daughter. Grief, loss, pain, but also some humor and some defiance.
Anne Sexton suffered from bipolar disorder, which in the 1960s was called manic/depression. She was in and out of treatment, she attempted suicide, yet she produced much work in poetry, gave readings, published books, and won a Pulitzer Prize. In the end, she lost her battle with her illness but my reading has not taken me to that point yet. She died in 1973.
I have recently read several memoirs by young women who suffered from the same mental disorder. They in various ways were able to stabilize and live with the affliction, to create art, thanks to medication and therapy. Mental health treatments have come a long way in 60 years.
I wonder what more Anne Sexton might have created.
These poems cover the deaths of both her parents, remembrances from childhood, an operation, an abortion, thoughts on religion, her husband, and her first daughter. Grief, loss, pain, but also some humor and some defiance.
Anne Sexton suffered from bipolar disorder, which in the 1960s was called manic/depression. She was in and out of treatment, she attempted suicide, yet she produced much work in poetry, gave readings, published books, and won a Pulitzer Prize. In the end, she lost her battle with her illness but my reading has not taken me to that point yet. She died in 1973.
I have recently read several memoirs by young women who suffered from the same mental disorder. They in various ways were able to stabilize and live with the affliction, to create art, thanks to medication and therapy. Mental health treatments have come a long way in 60 years.
I wonder what more Anne Sexton might have created.
Read
May 3, 2023The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
February 16, 2025
I love my sad women!
August 28, 2018
Please understand that my rating reflects how much impact the book had on me personally, not the worthiness of the poems (who am I to impose a judgement, such a system would be pointless)
April 6, 2017
I chose to read Anne Sexton's All My Pretty Ones for my book club's Extra-Curricular Read of April 2017. I was going to read a biography at first, but knowing little of Sexton's poetry proper, I decided to choose one of her collections at random. This is her second collection, published in 1961 after the death of both of her parents, and my goodness, is it accomplished! Every single poem is powerful, and has a wealth of things to say.
The imagery is stunning. On unearthing a photograph of her father after his death in the titular poem, Sexton writes: 'Now I find you down, my drunkard, my navigator, / my first keeper, to love or look at later'. The following extract is from 'Young': '... and I, in my brand new body, / which was not a woman's yet, / told the stars my questions / and thought God could really see / the heat and the painted light / elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.' 'I Remember' offers the following slice of beauty: 'one day I tied my hair back / with a ribbon and you said / that I looked almost like / a puritan lady and what / I remember best is that / the door to your room was / the door to mine.' Finally, this extract is taken from 'The Fortress', definitely one of my favourite poems in the entire collection: 'Under the pink quilted covers / I hold the pulse that counts your blood. / I think the woods outdoors / are half asleep, / left over from summer / like a stack of books after a flood, / left over like those promises I never keep.'
To conclude, All My Pretty Ones is a poetry collection which I cannot recommend highly enough. It is beautiful, memorable, and so important.
The imagery is stunning. On unearthing a photograph of her father after his death in the titular poem, Sexton writes: 'Now I find you down, my drunkard, my navigator, / my first keeper, to love or look at later'. The following extract is from 'Young': '... and I, in my brand new body, / which was not a woman's yet, / told the stars my questions / and thought God could really see / the heat and the painted light / elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.' 'I Remember' offers the following slice of beauty: 'one day I tied my hair back / with a ribbon and you said / that I looked almost like / a puritan lady and what / I remember best is that / the door to your room was / the door to mine.' Finally, this extract is taken from 'The Fortress', definitely one of my favourite poems in the entire collection: 'Under the pink quilted covers / I hold the pulse that counts your blood. / I think the woods outdoors / are half asleep, / left over from summer / like a stack of books after a flood, / left over like those promises I never keep.'
To conclude, All My Pretty Ones is a poetry collection which I cannot recommend highly enough. It is beautiful, memorable, and so important.
February 4, 2023
Sexton's poetry never fails to be arresting
March 16, 2025
my darling the wind falls in like stones from the whitehearted water and when we touch we touch entirely. no one's alone. men kill for this, or for as much.
October 6, 2013
The reading of these poems is as much a catharsis as I imagine the writing of them was.
Beginning with the keening of MacDuff:
and continuing on a painful poetic journey of discovery and loss, this collection combines heartbreak and calm in Sexton's signature verse.
A favourite poem:
The Black Art
A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.
Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hates,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.
Beginning with the keening of MacDuff:
"All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What! all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?...
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me."
and continuing on a painful poetic journey of discovery and loss, this collection combines heartbreak and calm in Sexton's signature verse.
A favourite poem:
The Black Art
A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.
Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hates,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.
August 4, 2011
I'm sort of - skeptical about poetry. Especially confessional poetry, which fairly or unfairly I tend to characterize as self-indulgent and sentimental (I think these two qualities often go hand in hand, although they are not, in and of themselves, necessarily going to make me dislike something: I love Gone With the Wind). And poetry is, anyway, a masochistic-self-reflecting art ("I - I - I" - whether or not the I is the poet, it's inescapable).
But, Anne Sexton! Holy shit!
I mean, you read these and the sheer power of feeling (grief and despair, mostly, two admittedly debilitating emotions) behind them knocks you out, but so does the skill - the skill and the talent.
Does John Darnielle like Anne Sexton? I feel like he probably does.
But, Anne Sexton! Holy shit!
I mean, you read these and the sheer power of feeling (grief and despair, mostly, two admittedly debilitating emotions) behind them knocks you out, but so does the skill - the skill and the talent.
Does John Darnielle like Anne Sexton? I feel like he probably does.
October 9, 2015
Don't know why I resisted Sexton all these decades. I gave this book a try because it promised to interact with MACBETH. Some of the poems do, and quite wonderfully, but the real point is that in the first third of this book are some highly autobiographical works about the loss of family. I find these poems very perceptive and moving. The poems later in the book do less for me, but there isn't a single one I don't respect, or, at worst, think is worth reading. This is a keeper, and an open door to reading more Sexton. It is about time I got my Sexton act together.
June 14, 2023
Quite entertaining novel set at a model agency in New York with lots of devious goings on in the world of fashion. Although fairly amusing it is nothing like as funny as Hall’s earlier book You’re Stepping On My Cloak and Dagger.
This is a bit strange because all the other reviews for this title seem to be for a poetry book called all my pretty ones by someone called Anne Sexton. There seems to be no resemblance between them. This one is not a poetry book.
This is a bit strange because all the other reviews for this title seem to be for a poetry book called all my pretty ones by someone called Anne Sexton. There seems to be no resemblance between them. This one is not a poetry book.
January 16, 2016
Sexton makes remarkable use, for just one thing, of rhyme. It frequently adds irony, without detracting from poignancy. It offers wit among the bleakness, as a kind of protest. I agree with other reviewers who feel that the poems packing the most punch here are in the first half of the collection, but I found much of interest throughout.
September 21, 2019
This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.
Want to read
June 10, 20202020 Personal Pandemic Project: using poets' repetitions to make some repoesy.
why me at all
(Precious reasonable Eleanor,)
as good doors
thump come here
(she knows
Father, my Friend,
God, good news.)
go on
she tells him
(i think
i have seen
You my God, frail, deep
— starry — strange — starry —)
and lay
with me
(sleeping gently.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
if you'd like to make your own...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
why me
at all
precious
reasonable
Eleanor
as good
doors
thump
come
here
she knows
Father
my Friend
God
good news
go on
she tells him
i think
i have seen
You
starry
my God
frail
deep
strange
starry
sleeping
and lay
with me
gently
October 4, 2024
"The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry."
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry."
July 6, 2022
these poems are anne sexton going through her catholicism phase. kind of really liked them though. really beautiful poems in here. and ONLY ONE why did she write this poem. my favorites were the starry night, a curse against elegies, with mercy for the greedy, in the deep museum, the fortress, old, water, housewife, letters written on a ferry while crossing long island sound, from my garden, for eleanor boylan talking with god, the black art, and letters written during a january northeaster
June 25, 2022
I always read Anne Sexton in one sitting because she’s so GOOD.
She describes things in this ugly, gritty way that cracks the gilded cover what we think our lives should be. The ending of each poem cuts off the thought so neatly, directing you into your own thoughts.
She describes things in this ugly, gritty way that cracks the gilded cover what we think our lives should be. The ending of each poem cuts off the thought so neatly, directing you into your own thoughts.
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