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Words for Dr. Y: Uncollected Poems
Words For Dr. Y is the first collection of Anne Sexton's poetry from which her editorial guidance was totally absent. Contains: 9 poems from 1971 - 1973; The Horoscope Poems: Scorpio, Bad Spider, and Die; Three Stories: The Ghost, Vampire, and The Bat (or To Remember, To Remember).
- GenresPoetry
101 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
Anne Sexton
149 books2,560 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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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 19, 2021
Some real gems here. These poems also don’t feel like they’re going for shock value like some of her other later stuf which I really appreciate.
May 25, 2021
Voice number 5 says,
“I am a whip. Could you not find
someone to put me to a proper use?
I will cut. I will make blood into brine.
I will mark you all over with little red fish.
You will be almost killed, a delight.
You will suffer, child, and it will be kind.”
From ‘ What do the voices say? Dr. Y. asks. ‘
-June 6, 1967
This collection is sharp, exciting and full of release.
Anne held nothing back. Because she knew it was the only way, for her.
“I am a whip. Could you not find
someone to put me to a proper use?
I will cut. I will make blood into brine.
I will mark you all over with little red fish.
You will be almost killed, a delight.
You will suffer, child, and it will be kind.”
From ‘ What do the voices say? Dr. Y. asks. ‘
-June 6, 1967
This collection is sharp, exciting and full of release.
Anne held nothing back. Because she knew it was the only way, for her.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2022
goods poems not her best but not her worst 3 star rating because she said that she hates dogs in one of the poems. but still good lines in here. anyways what do i do now. this is the last of her poetry. like i’m done now. what am i supposed i read now. wtf do i do now
January 20, 2022
I love the word warm.
It is almost unbearable -
so moist and breathlike.
I feel he earth like a nurse,
curing me of winter.
I feel the earth,
its worms oiling upward,
the ants ticking,
the oak leaf rotting like feces
and the oats rising like angels.
In the beginning,
summer is a sense
of this earth,
or of yourself.
* * *
I called him Comfort.
Dr. Y., I gave him the wrong name.
I should have called him Preacher
for all day there on the coastland
he read me the Bible
He read me the Bible to prove I was sinful.
For in the night he was betrayed.
And then he let me give him a Judas-kiss,
that red lock that held us in place,
and then I gave him a drink from my cup
and he whispered, "Rape, rape."
And then I gave him my wrist
and he sucked on the blood,
hating himself for it,
murmuring, "God will see. God will see."
And I said,
"To hell with God!"
And he said,
"Would you mock God?"
And I said,
"God is only mocked by believers!"
And he said,
"I love only the truth."
And I said,
"This holy concern for the truth -
no one worries about it except liars."
And God was bored.
He turned on his side
like an opium eater
and slept.
* * *
What about all the psychotics
of the world?
Why do they keep eating?
Why do they keep making plans
and meeting people at the appointed time?
Don't they know there is nothing,
a void, an eyeless socket,
a grave with the corpse stolen?
Don't they know that God gave them
their miraculous sickness
like a shield, like armour
and if their eyes are in the wrong
part of their head, they shouldn't complain?
What are they doing seeing their doctors
when the world's up for grabs.
* * *
Jack, oh big Jack,
of the rack and the screw,
why in New York did you seem
tinier. Doctor Jack,
in your office, in the O.R.
last week unscrewing my hip,
you seemed as big as an island.
I stir my martinis with the screw,
four-inch and stainless steel,
and think of my hip where it lay
for four years like a darkness.
Jack, oh big Jack,
would you like an ear or a finger
to keep of me? From you I have
one of the tools of your carpentry.
But what do you keep of me?
The memory of my bones flying
up into your hands.
* * *
The twelve-thousand-day honeymoon
is over.
Hands crumble like clay,
the mouth, its bewildered tongue,
turns yellow with pain,
the breasts with their doll teacups
lie in a grave of silence,
the arms fall down like boards,
the stomach,
so lightly danced over,
lies grumbling in its foul nausea,
the mound that lifted like the waves
again and again
at your touch
stops, lies helpless as a pinecone,
the vagina, where a daisy rooted,
where a river of sperm rushed home,
lies like a clumsy, unused puppet,
and the heart
slips backward,
remembering, remembering,
where the god had been
as he beat his furious wings.
And then the heart
grabs a prayer out of the newspaper
and lets it buzz through its ventricle, its auricle,
like a wasp
stinging where it will,
yet glowing furiously
in the little highways
where you remain.
* * *
March 7th
The day is favourable for creative work.
The big toad sits in my writing room
preventing me from writing. I am a flower
who drys out under her hot breath. She is blowing grass
through her hands! She is knitting up a womb,
knitting up a baby's foot. Her breath is sour.
Her breath is tarnishing up my silver and my brass.
Toad! Are you someone's grunting left-over squaw,
a fat asthmatic Asia, a mother-in-law?
It is almost unbearable -
so moist and breathlike.
I feel he earth like a nurse,
curing me of winter.
I feel the earth,
its worms oiling upward,
the ants ticking,
the oak leaf rotting like feces
and the oats rising like angels.
In the beginning,
summer is a sense
of this earth,
or of yourself.
- from Letters to Dr. Y, pg. 9
* * *
I called him Comfort.
Dr. Y., I gave him the wrong name.
I should have called him Preacher
for all day there on the coastland
he read me the Bible
He read me the Bible to prove I was sinful.
For in the night he was betrayed.
And then he let me give him a Judas-kiss,
that red lock that held us in place,
and then I gave him a drink from my cup
and he whispered, "Rape, rape."
And then I gave him my wrist
and he sucked on the blood,
hating himself for it,
murmuring, "God will see. God will see."
And I said,
"To hell with God!"
And he said,
"Would you mock God?"
And I said,
"God is only mocked by believers!"
And he said,
"I love only the truth."
And I said,
"This holy concern for the truth -
no one worries about it except liars."
And God was bored.
He turned on his side
like an opium eater
and slept.
- from Letters to Dr. Y, pg. 17-18
* * *
What about all the psychotics
of the world?
Why do they keep eating?
Why do they keep making plans
and meeting people at the appointed time?
Don't they know there is nothing,
a void, an eyeless socket,
a grave with the corpse stolen?
Don't they know that God gave them
their miraculous sickness
like a shield, like armour
and if their eyes are in the wrong
part of their head, they shouldn't complain?
What are they doing seeing their doctors
when the world's up for grabs.
- from Letters to Dr. Y, pg. 25
* * *
Jack, oh big Jack,
of the rack and the screw,
why in New York did you seem
tinier. Doctor Jack,
in your office, in the O.R.
last week unscrewing my hip,
you seemed as big as an island.
I stir my martinis with the screw,
four-inch and stainless steel,
and think of my hip where it lay
for four years like a darkness.
Jack, oh big Jack,
would you like an ear or a finger
to keep of me? From you I have
one of the tools of your carpentry.
But what do you keep of me?
The memory of my bones flying
up into your hands.
- The Surgeon, for Jack McGinty, pg. 40
* * *
The twelve-thousand-day honeymoon
is over.
Hands crumble like clay,
the mouth, its bewildered tongue,
turns yellow with pain,
the breasts with their doll teacups
lie in a grave of silence,
the arms fall down like boards,
the stomach,
so lightly danced over,
lies grumbling in its foul nausea,
the mound that lifted like the waves
again and again
at your touch
stops, lies helpless as a pinecone,
the vagina, where a daisy rooted,
where a river of sperm rushed home,
lies like a clumsy, unused puppet,
and the heart
slips backward,
remembering, remembering,
where the god had been
as he beat his furious wings.
And then the heart
grabs a prayer out of the newspaper
and lets it buzz through its ventricle, its auricle,
like a wasp
stinging where it will,
yet glowing furiously
in the little highways
where you remain.
- The Twelve-Thousand-Day Honeymoon, pg. 50-51
* * *
March 7th
The day is favourable for creative work.
The big toad sits in my writing room
preventing me from writing. I am a flower
who drys out under her hot breath. She is blowing grass
through her hands! She is knitting up a womb,
knitting up a baby's foot. Her breath is sour.
Her breath is tarnishing up my silver and my brass.
Toad! Are you someone's grunting left-over squaw,
a fat asthmatic Asia, a mother-in-law?
- from The Horoscope Poems, pg. 73
Read
February 19, 2025OK -- Não foi o melhor da Sexton, e infelizmente foi o último.
Estou desde abril do ano passado passeando pela obra dela e nossa. Não sei o que vou fazer agora que não tenho mais um Próximo Livro Da Sexton™ to look forward to.
She has been a most faithful companion -- amidst chaos, tribulation and some of the worst moments of my life. I read her when I needed a friend. When everything around me seemed to crumble, there she was: welcoming me with her words.
Ler Sexton neste período foi um conforto: mesmo este último, que quis vir durante minha leitura de Guerra e Paz (o Grande motivo da falta de atualizações aqui), me pareceu um refúgio -- de outros autores, de outras vozes. Acho que tem vezes em que só quero ouvir Anne.
Sou eternamente grato pela experiência de ler (e escrever sobre!!!! Literalmente minha dissertação!!!) e viver as palavras dela.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Anne. Looking forward to having martinis with you once we meet in heaven (though it will take quite a long, long while).
Estou desde abril do ano passado passeando pela obra dela e nossa. Não sei o que vou fazer agora que não tenho mais um Próximo Livro Da Sexton™ to look forward to.
She has been a most faithful companion -- amidst chaos, tribulation and some of the worst moments of my life. I read her when I needed a friend. When everything around me seemed to crumble, there she was: welcoming me with her words.
Ler Sexton neste período foi um conforto: mesmo este último, que quis vir durante minha leitura de Guerra e Paz (o Grande motivo da falta de atualizações aqui), me pareceu um refúgio -- de outros autores, de outras vozes. Acho que tem vezes em que só quero ouvir Anne.
Sou eternamente grato pela experiência de ler (e escrever sobre!!!! Literalmente minha dissertação!!!) e viver as palavras dela.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Anne. Looking forward to having martinis with you once we meet in heaven (though it will take quite a long, long while).
September 5, 2026
The final collection gathered in Sexton's omnibus, 'The Collected Poems,' this one is not nearly as strong as most of her work; however, this comes as no surprise—these poems, as far as I understand, though finished, were either still in revision at the time of Sexton's death or were pieces that she felt didn't fit in previous collections.
There are some good ones in here, and the images are strong as ever, but they read like exactly what they are: a handful of loose poems thrown together.
Standouts:
"To Like, To Love"
"Telephone"
"Yellow"
"The Death King"
"Madame Arrives in the Mail"
"February 4th"
"February 11th"
"February 17th"
"February 21st"
"In Excelsis"
There are some good ones in here, and the images are strong as ever, but they read like exactly what they are: a handful of loose poems thrown together.
Standouts:
"To Like, To Love"
"Telephone"
"Yellow"
"The Death King"
"Madame Arrives in the Mail"
"February 4th"
"February 11th"
"February 17th"
"February 21st"
"In Excelsis"
September 14, 2018
This posthumous collection pulls together the strays that Anne Sexton wrote but which never made it into a book. As such, "Words for Dr. Y" feels a bit like a few radically different themes forcefully stitched together -- some with potential, some not. I especially liked "Scorpio, Bad Spider, Die: The Horoscope Poems" as a concept. The random poems mid-book feel less of a kind. The final section, a trio of short stories, reads as unrealized beginnings. All in all, it's a strange literary nod to the end of a life and a career.
October 3, 2022
Completely in love with the letters … have been thinking about
And then I gave him my wrist
and he sucked on the blood,
hating himself for it,
murmuring, “God will see. God will see.”
since i read it for the first time, some time ago. I think the letters are definitely the best part of this book, but i really did enjoy some of the poems, it’s just that they held nothing to the letters to me—so to read them after felt somewhat lacklustre.
And then I gave him my wrist
and he sucked on the blood,
hating himself for it,
murmuring, “God will see. God will see.”
since i read it for the first time, some time ago. I think the letters are definitely the best part of this book, but i really did enjoy some of the poems, it’s just that they held nothing to the letters to me—so to read them after felt somewhat lacklustre.
March 18, 2026
I love the word warm.
It is almost unbearable — so moist and breathlike.
I feel the earth like a nurse, curing me of winter.
I feel the earth, its worms oiling upward, the ants ticking, the oak leaf rotting like feces and the oats rising like angels.
In the beginning, summer is a sense of this earth, or of yourself.
It is almost unbearable — so moist and breathlike.
I feel the earth like a nurse, curing me of winter.
I feel the earth, its worms oiling upward, the ants ticking, the oak leaf rotting like feces and the oats rising like angels.
In the beginning, summer is a sense of this earth, or of yourself.
April 20, 2020
Really enjoyed this though it felt a little disjointed at times. Absolutely LOVED the spooky stories.
January 17, 2023
objectively not that good
Read
January 7, 2025the last anne sexton poetry book.. guess i'll reread my favorites next january!
July 7, 2025
anne sexton my scorpio queen💌
February 11, 2026
Oh Anne, I say again.
March 19, 2017
When they turn the sun
on again I'll plant children
under it, I'll light up my soul
with a match and let it sing. I'll
take my bones and polish them, I'll
vacuum up my stale hair, I'll
pay all my neighbors' bad debts, I'll
write a poem called Yellow and put
my lips down to drink it up, I'll
feed myself spoonfuls of heat and
everyone will be home playing with
their wings and the planet will
shudder with all those smiles and
there will be no poison anywhere, no plague
in the sky and there will be a mother-broth
for all of the people and we will
never die, not one of us, we'll go on
won't we?
on again I'll plant children
under it, I'll light up my soul
with a match and let it sing. I'll
take my bones and polish them, I'll
vacuum up my stale hair, I'll
pay all my neighbors' bad debts, I'll
write a poem called Yellow and put
my lips down to drink it up, I'll
feed myself spoonfuls of heat and
everyone will be home playing with
their wings and the planet will
shudder with all those smiles and
there will be no poison anywhere, no plague
in the sky and there will be a mother-broth
for all of the people and we will
never die, not one of us, we'll go on
won't we?
June 12, 2018
I thought this was interesting, but ultimately I did not enjoy it all that much. Anne Sexton is a hit or miss for me and this one was a miss.
2024 re-read: I thought pretty much the same as 2018, but enjoyed the "Words for Dr. Y" section a bit, but the rest of the collection you can tell Sexton either considered these unfinished or drafts.
2024 re-read: I thought pretty much the same as 2018, but enjoyed the "Words for Dr. Y" section a bit, but the rest of the collection you can tell Sexton either considered these unfinished or drafts.
December 1, 2013
Clear, structured, ordered, intense.
For an unedited collection, this really shows the effectiveness of Sexton's system of conscientious self-editing and revising. Nevertheless, I continue to feel uncomfortable reviewing work that never passed the writer's eyes before publication.
For an unedited collection, this really shows the effectiveness of Sexton's system of conscientious self-editing and revising. Nevertheless, I continue to feel uncomfortable reviewing work that never passed the writer's eyes before publication.
December 5, 2013
Too scattered to be really appreciated in its current form, but had AS lived longer this probably would have been a fantastic collection.
September 24, 2014
"Pero mi futuro es un secreto.
Es tan tímido como un topo"
Es tan tímido como un topo"
April 10, 2017
Sexton's uncollected poems remind us both of her genius (her rhymes, her capacity to take us to the brink of melodrama without careening over the edge, her image making abilities) and her discernment. These poems are good AND uncollected. The three prose pieces at the end, all of them horror themed, are less convincing, but the poems--they're top flight.
May 10, 2019
For her last unplanned collection this sure was a breath of fresh air compared to her other later works.
These uncollected poems range from the start of her career right up until her untimely death. It seems like a fair amount of these were written during her peak years which is probably why I was more receptive to them as I definitely prefer her earlier work.
It’s been a pleasure to read all of her poetry over the past couple of weeks, and I hope that I get around to reading her letters at some point in the near future too.
These uncollected poems range from the start of her career right up until her untimely death. It seems like a fair amount of these were written during her peak years which is probably why I was more receptive to them as I definitely prefer her earlier work.
It’s been a pleasure to read all of her poetry over the past couple of weeks, and I hope that I get around to reading her letters at some point in the near future too.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews