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The Awful Rowing Toward God
Sexton's eighth collection of poetry is entitled The Awful Rowing Toward God. The title came from her meeting with a Roman Catholic priest who, although unwilling to administer last rites, told her "God is in your typewriter." This gave the poet the desire and willpower to continue living and writing. The Awful Rowing Toward God and The Death Notebooks are among her final works and both centre on the theme of dying.
86 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1975
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About the author
Anne Sexton
149 books2,492 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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October 17, 2022
To be without God is to be a snake
who wants to swallow an elephant
I was early to a trailhead yesterday, for my Sunday hike with my cousin, and, shockingly, she was late (it's almost always me).
Luckily I had my library copy of Anne Sexton's The Awful Rowing Toward God on my passenger seat, waiting for my return, so I picked it up and devoured more of the poems that have adorned my life, and fed me, spiritually, all week, and, before I knew it, I was bawling in my car.
When I saw my cousin's car pull up next to mine, I gave my face a quick dry rub and covered half of it with a big pair of dark sunglasses, but when she got out of her car, I could see her face was tear-stained while she was still yards away.
“What were you reading?” I joked, but she didn't understand me.
We hiked for about 90 minutes and it was one of those “deep hikes” where the woods open you up and there are no witnesses around to discourage you from speaking your truth. By the time we got back to our cars, I told her, “I was actually crying before you got here, because a poem just about killed me. Could I read it to you?”
She nodded, and I grabbed the book, but just as I started the first line, a family of five (six, if you include the bulldog) got out of an SUV and just stood there, staring at me. Then about five lines in, a woman and a beagle stepped off the trail and leaned against the car, listening to me.
It was crazy, but true. I felt weird, but I was determined. I ended up reading this aloud in a dirt parking lot, to seven people and two dogs, next to a trailhead:
God went out of me
as if the sea dried up like sandpaper,
as if the sun became a latrine.
God went out of my fingers.
They became stone.
My body became a side of mutton
and despair roamed the slaughterhouse.
Someone brought me oranges in despair
but I could not eat a one
for God was in that orange.
I could not touch what did not belong to me.
The priest came,
he said God was even in Hitler.
I did not believe him
for if God were in Hitler
then God would be in me.
I did not hear the bird sounds.
They had left.
I did not see the speechless clouds,
I saw only the little white dish of my faith
breaking in the crater.
I kept saying:
I've got to have something to hold on to.
People gave me Bibles, crucifixes,
a yellow daisy,
but I could not touch them,
I who was a house full of bowel movement,
I who was a defaced altar,
I who wanted to crawl toward God
could not move nor eat bread.
So I ate myself,
bite by bite,
and the tears washed me,
wave after cowardly wave,
swallowing canker after canker
and Jesus stood over me looking down
and He laughed to find me gone,
and put His mouth to mine
and gave me His air.
My kindred, my brother, I said
and gave the yellow daisy
to the crazy woman in the next bed.
When I finished reading, my cousin and I looked at each other, tears in both of our eyes, and she said, “You just took me to church.”
It made me laugh, but I said, “No, Anne Sexton did.”
God as my witness, as I said those words, a gust of wind blew the tops of the trees and a shower of yellow leaves littered the ground around us.
who wants to swallow an elephant
I was early to a trailhead yesterday, for my Sunday hike with my cousin, and, shockingly, she was late (it's almost always me).
Luckily I had my library copy of Anne Sexton's The Awful Rowing Toward God on my passenger seat, waiting for my return, so I picked it up and devoured more of the poems that have adorned my life, and fed me, spiritually, all week, and, before I knew it, I was bawling in my car.
When I saw my cousin's car pull up next to mine, I gave my face a quick dry rub and covered half of it with a big pair of dark sunglasses, but when she got out of her car, I could see her face was tear-stained while she was still yards away.
“What were you reading?” I joked, but she didn't understand me.
We hiked for about 90 minutes and it was one of those “deep hikes” where the woods open you up and there are no witnesses around to discourage you from speaking your truth. By the time we got back to our cars, I told her, “I was actually crying before you got here, because a poem just about killed me. Could I read it to you?”
She nodded, and I grabbed the book, but just as I started the first line, a family of five (six, if you include the bulldog) got out of an SUV and just stood there, staring at me. Then about five lines in, a woman and a beagle stepped off the trail and leaned against the car, listening to me.
It was crazy, but true. I felt weird, but I was determined. I ended up reading this aloud in a dirt parking lot, to seven people and two dogs, next to a trailhead:
God went out of me
as if the sea dried up like sandpaper,
as if the sun became a latrine.
God went out of my fingers.
They became stone.
My body became a side of mutton
and despair roamed the slaughterhouse.
Someone brought me oranges in despair
but I could not eat a one
for God was in that orange.
I could not touch what did not belong to me.
The priest came,
he said God was even in Hitler.
I did not believe him
for if God were in Hitler
then God would be in me.
I did not hear the bird sounds.
They had left.
I did not see the speechless clouds,
I saw only the little white dish of my faith
breaking in the crater.
I kept saying:
I've got to have something to hold on to.
People gave me Bibles, crucifixes,
a yellow daisy,
but I could not touch them,
I who was a house full of bowel movement,
I who was a defaced altar,
I who wanted to crawl toward God
could not move nor eat bread.
So I ate myself,
bite by bite,
and the tears washed me,
wave after cowardly wave,
swallowing canker after canker
and Jesus stood over me looking down
and He laughed to find me gone,
and put His mouth to mine
and gave me His air.
My kindred, my brother, I said
and gave the yellow daisy
to the crazy woman in the next bed.
When I finished reading, my cousin and I looked at each other, tears in both of our eyes, and she said, “You just took me to church.”
It made me laugh, but I said, “No, Anne Sexton did.”
God as my witness, as I said those words, a gust of wind blew the tops of the trees and a shower of yellow leaves littered the ground around us.
April 9, 2025
I never think of Anne Sexton without thinking about Sylvia Plath & I can definitely feel a Plathian influence here (but these poems are very much her own.) These may not have the sophistication of Plath but I like these better than Ariel. Plath's poems are richer, more obtuse, tighter structure....Sexton's are looser, more alive, more Zen-like...
I am so grateful for this collection of poems, her final collection before her suicide. I am at a loss for how to describe them and their impact on me but Sexton's genius-and how it finally comes out here, leaves me astonished. Each beautifully follows the next in perfect, Divine right order from a woman exploring her lost connection to God. Her agony is real, a feeling of being cut off from god- and her suicide being a final expression of this. Sexton was one of those who burned too bright for this world.
I am so grateful for this collection of poems, her final collection before her suicide. I am at a loss for how to describe them and their impact on me but Sexton's genius-and how it finally comes out here, leaves me astonished. Each beautifully follows the next in perfect, Divine right order from a woman exploring her lost connection to God. Her agony is real, a feeling of being cut off from god- and her suicide being a final expression of this. Sexton was one of those who burned too bright for this world.
January 26, 2008
Poems with teeth and claws and ovaries and all the rest.
February 4, 2021
Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have:
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
Joan, Marie, Dawn,
Arlene, Father Dunne,
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.
They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is spurting out upo them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in —
all in comes the fury of love.
December 31, 2008
this book is the closest thing i have had to a spiritual experience in quite some time. read it read it read it.
Currently reading
September 23, 2007Her poetry is very simple in words, but her emotions and ideas that she weaves into those simple words are amazing. I think knowing her history, about who she was as a person, has really helped me to understand why she wrote some of the poetry in this book. My favorite poems so far are, After Auschwitz, and Rowing.
August 25, 2012
Read each poem in order, for the last, The Rowing Endeth, is the capstone. (As with any good joke, you have to hear the whole thing to make sense of the punch line.)
January 29, 2012
I loved the dark and speculative tone of this collection. Sexton keenly questions the meaning of God's existence (and ours), while introspectively coming to grips with her own failures and regrets. The fact that she (allegedly) planned her suicide, and the posthumous publication of this book, adds intrigue and validity.
In the poem, "Is It True," Sexton ruminates- "Occasionally the devil has crawled in and out of me through my cigarettes I suppose." While "Rowing," the collection's opening poem, mesmerizes and sets the pace. I found the majority of these poems to be compellingly and powerful; yet, a few had the tendency to keep rambling long after the point... sort of like a great pop song that is six minutes, when it should be three minutes. Nevertheless, The Awful Rowing Towards God really resonated with me. I can't believe I found this treasure for only $2 at the used book store.
Here's an excerpt from the poem "Rowing"
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
In the poem, "Is It True," Sexton ruminates- "Occasionally the devil has crawled in and out of me through my cigarettes I suppose." While "Rowing," the collection's opening poem, mesmerizes and sets the pace. I found the majority of these poems to be compellingly and powerful; yet, a few had the tendency to keep rambling long after the point... sort of like a great pop song that is six minutes, when it should be three minutes. Nevertheless, The Awful Rowing Towards God really resonated with me. I can't believe I found this treasure for only $2 at the used book store.
Here's an excerpt from the poem "Rowing"
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
September 19, 2011
immense and devastating.
November 24, 2013
These poems were written at Anne Sexton's darkest, most chaotic time; her "hysteria" or depression had pushed away friends and family and she was spiraling down towards another, and final suicide attempt. The mania, confusion, and desperation for something akin to peace pour out of the seemingly simple poems.
I feel like the book is caught in the limbo, between her moments of hysteria and those fragile moments of clarity -- fraught with guilt. Knowing also that her suicide would take place before the book's publishing, I have understood this book to be (in a way) the suicide letter that her daughter (Linda Grey) tried to search for after Anne's death. I'm not sure if Sexton intended it to be a suicide note, but publishing a series of poems as her fair-well I think was keeping with her very open and public mentality.
I feel like the book is caught in the limbo, between her moments of hysteria and those fragile moments of clarity -- fraught with guilt. Knowing also that her suicide would take place before the book's publishing, I have understood this book to be (in a way) the suicide letter that her daughter (Linda Grey) tried to search for after Anne's death. I'm not sure if Sexton intended it to be a suicide note, but publishing a series of poems as her fair-well I think was keeping with her very open and public mentality.
November 21, 2019
Now having read the complete poems, I can say this collection of Sexton's is her absolute best. These poems are more intense, passionate and more moving then all her other work. Everything is perfect. Highlights ~ "rowing" "the children" " the room of my life" "the earth falls down" "courage" "the post of ignorance" " the evil seekers" and "the rowing endeth".
May 14, 2021
I wish I could give this six stars.
February 16, 2016
I can't find it within me to give this book 4 stars because there's just something special about it; however, I also find it difficult to give it 5 stars because of its flaws. Ah well, let's just do it and be damned.
But first, some stage-setting. Below is an excerpt from one of the poems in this poetry collection, titled The Play:
The immediate takeaway from this poem is that it communicates an awareness of its flaws, but it also offers no apology for them. As she states matter-of-factly, "It was a bad performance.\ That's because I'm the only actor [...] Don't you agree?"
As has been mentioned in some of the other reviews of this book, there's something amateurish and unpolished about these poems that is difficult to ignore. For instance, in the poem the Civil War, she pronounces her grand mission to "conquer them all/and build a whole nation of God/in me - but united", but this announcement feels hollow simply because there's nothing grand about the poem, it's a poem that refuses to shed the ordinary elements of the world. Sexton says she will use scissors and a crowbar to extricate God from within her, she likens the task of putting him together like a jigsaw puzzle, even the pieces of God Himself seem tainted with ordinariness: "God dressed up like a whore/in a slime of green algae./God dressed up like an old man/staggering out of His shoes." As a result, the poem invites reader sympathy since we realise the speaker is voluntarily subjecting herself to pain for some noble purpose yet to be articulated, but it leaves us unimpressed and dissatisfied with her pronouncements.
Yet I think, while I do believe that this poetry collection could still use editing and improving, I think it's also important to point out incompleteness, as well as God's relation to man's incompleteness, is a central thematic preoccupation of this book, and this sense of incompleteness pervades all of the poems. In Sextons' view, human beings have been cast rudderless into mortal existence and she needs to make sense of how to deal with this issue. As she writes in the opening poem, Rowing, "I will get rid of the rat inside of me,/ the gnawing pestilential rat./ God will take it with his two hands/ and embrace it." Besides figuring man's existential crisis as a God-shaped emptiness in mortal existence, Sexton also observes man to be a creature with grievous moral faults (cf. After Auschwitz, The Fire Thief), and a creature unable to make sense of the world properly and thus given to absurdity (cf. Words, The Sermon of the Twelve Acknowledgements). So I have to think that the unvarnished character of these poems was deliberately allowed by Sexton. In fact she sort of alludes to this in the opening poem:
Sexton is not concerned with being a great poet wielding formidable skill, but to find some way of getting rid of the rat in her, to find some way of understanding what's tormenting her. Unlike Plath, she refuses to mythologise herself or any human being for that matter - fundamentally, they are all tiny and feeble creatures, even if they do not realise it. As she states bluntly in the poem The Wall, "we are all earthworms" and many "will be painted out with a black ink." Just like that. In light of this, her failure to polish up her writing isn't (just) out of poor writing discipline or laziness, but also a conscious decision because she has other priorities. As she mentions in the poem Frenzy: "I am not lazy./I am on the amphetamine of the soul./I am, each day,/typing out the God/my typewriter believes in."
Once you forgive Sexton for the roughly hewn quality of the majority of these poems and her refusal to polish away some inelegant use of imagery/words, you begin to realise that Sexton's approach to language is actually quite startling and original in its own way. I was particularly struck by this scene in the poem When Man Enters Woman:
Beyond just liking the phrase "her teeth gleam like the alphabet" (which for some reason makes perfect sense to me), there's a strange mix of personal intimacy and impersonal universality in this scene that I find both uncomfortable and also quite interesting. I'm loathe to say anything about how this fits thematically with the book, so I'll just leave it at that.
Another thing: It's also interesting to trace how the ideas develop through this book. In the beginning, her agonising sense of alone-ness is figured as a gnawing rat, it then becomes a huge crab that is "clutching fast to my heart [...] It is a great weight", before her heart dies ("It is a dead heart. It is inside of me. It is a stranger") before becoming the devil. I've also noticed how children get mentioned every now and then, but her attitude towards them changes - sometimes they are dignified by their innocence ("we are born with luck/which is to say with gold in our mouth./As new and smooth as a grape,/as pure as a pond in Alaska") and as well as their courage ("If I could listen/to the bulldog courage of those children [...] I could melt the darkness"), yet other times they are treated less ceremoniously ("I am shoveling the children out,/scoop after scoop").
There's so much more I could say about Sexton's unorthodox use of language in poetry, but I think I've said enough and it's best you discover them by yourself. I will however once again strongly suggest you look beyond some of the apparent stylistic weaknesses of this book, and try to approach it from a different angle, i.e. try and meet Sexton halfway with this book, you'll get more out of it that way.
I'll end by listing my favourite poems from this collection: Courage, Riding the Elevator into the Sky, The Rowing Endeth
But first, some stage-setting. Below is an excerpt from one of the poems in this poetry collection, titled The Play:
"I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act.
[...]
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
eggs must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.
[...]
The curtain falls.
The audience rushes out.
It was a bad performance.
That’s because I’m the only actor
and there are few humans whose lives
will make an interesting play.
Don’t you agree?"
The immediate takeaway from this poem is that it communicates an awareness of its flaws, but it also offers no apology for them. As she states matter-of-factly, "It was a bad performance.\ That's because I'm the only actor [...] Don't you agree?"
As has been mentioned in some of the other reviews of this book, there's something amateurish and unpolished about these poems that is difficult to ignore. For instance, in the poem the Civil War, she pronounces her grand mission to "conquer them all/and build a whole nation of God/in me - but united", but this announcement feels hollow simply because there's nothing grand about the poem, it's a poem that refuses to shed the ordinary elements of the world. Sexton says she will use scissors and a crowbar to extricate God from within her, she likens the task of putting him together like a jigsaw puzzle, even the pieces of God Himself seem tainted with ordinariness: "God dressed up like a whore/in a slime of green algae./God dressed up like an old man/staggering out of His shoes." As a result, the poem invites reader sympathy since we realise the speaker is voluntarily subjecting herself to pain for some noble purpose yet to be articulated, but it leaves us unimpressed and dissatisfied with her pronouncements.
Yet I think, while I do believe that this poetry collection could still use editing and improving, I think it's also important to point out incompleteness, as well as God's relation to man's incompleteness, is a central thematic preoccupation of this book, and this sense of incompleteness pervades all of the poems. In Sextons' view, human beings have been cast rudderless into mortal existence and she needs to make sense of how to deal with this issue. As she writes in the opening poem, Rowing, "I will get rid of the rat inside of me,/ the gnawing pestilential rat./ God will take it with his two hands/ and embrace it." Besides figuring man's existential crisis as a God-shaped emptiness in mortal existence, Sexton also observes man to be a creature with grievous moral faults (cf. After Auschwitz, The Fire Thief), and a creature unable to make sense of the world properly and thus given to absurdity (cf. Words, The Sermon of the Twelve Acknowledgements). So I have to think that the unvarnished character of these poems was deliberately allowed by Sexton. In fact she sort of alludes to this in the opening poem:
"I know that that island will not be perfect,
It will have the flaws of life,
The absurdities of the dinner table,
But there will be a door,
And I will open it,
And I will get rid of the rat inside of me."
Sexton is not concerned with being a great poet wielding formidable skill, but to find some way of getting rid of the rat in her, to find some way of understanding what's tormenting her. Unlike Plath, she refuses to mythologise herself or any human being for that matter - fundamentally, they are all tiny and feeble creatures, even if they do not realise it. As she states bluntly in the poem The Wall, "we are all earthworms" and many "will be painted out with a black ink." Just like that. In light of this, her failure to polish up her writing isn't (just) out of poor writing discipline or laziness, but also a conscious decision because she has other priorities. As she mentions in the poem Frenzy: "I am not lazy./I am on the amphetamine of the soul./I am, each day,/typing out the God/my typewriter believes in."
Once you forgive Sexton for the roughly hewn quality of the majority of these poems and her refusal to polish away some inelegant use of imagery/words, you begin to realise that Sexton's approach to language is actually quite startling and original in its own way. I was particularly struck by this scene in the poem When Man Enters Woman:
“When man
enters woman,
like the surf biting the shore,/
again and again,
and the woman opens her mouth in pleasure
and her teeth gleam
like the alphabet,
Logos appears milking a star”
Beyond just liking the phrase "her teeth gleam like the alphabet" (which for some reason makes perfect sense to me), there's a strange mix of personal intimacy and impersonal universality in this scene that I find both uncomfortable and also quite interesting. I'm loathe to say anything about how this fits thematically with the book, so I'll just leave it at that.
Another thing: It's also interesting to trace how the ideas develop through this book. In the beginning, her agonising sense of alone-ness is figured as a gnawing rat, it then becomes a huge crab that is "clutching fast to my heart [...] It is a great weight", before her heart dies ("It is a dead heart. It is inside of me. It is a stranger") before becoming the devil. I've also noticed how children get mentioned every now and then, but her attitude towards them changes - sometimes they are dignified by their innocence ("we are born with luck/which is to say with gold in our mouth./As new and smooth as a grape,/as pure as a pond in Alaska") and as well as their courage ("If I could listen/to the bulldog courage of those children [...] I could melt the darkness"), yet other times they are treated less ceremoniously ("I am shoveling the children out,/scoop after scoop").
There's so much more I could say about Sexton's unorthodox use of language in poetry, but I think I've said enough and it's best you discover them by yourself. I will however once again strongly suggest you look beyond some of the apparent stylistic weaknesses of this book, and try to approach it from a different angle, i.e. try and meet Sexton halfway with this book, you'll get more out of it that way.
I'll end by listing my favourite poems from this collection: Courage, Riding the Elevator into the Sky, The Rowing Endeth
October 6, 2011
Though I have Sexton's collected works, and she is one of my most favorite poets of all time, this volume might be my least favorite of her works. Re-reading it was happenstance, as someone left their copy behind at the library and it never got picked up from our Lost & Found. Published posthumously, Sexton specified that she would not allow these to be published until after her death, so the book came out about 5 months after her suicide.
Lots of Sexton's work is dark and painful, interspersed with moments of hilarity, mania, or bizarre silliness, and this book is no different at its high points. However, the bulk of it reads (to me) as if Sexton was tremendously tired, worn out. The poems don't sparkle with her usual wit and rhythm. Though most of her work was intensely personal, these are so personal as to be boring in many instances. The language doesn't always convey, here, the depth of her misery or the heights of her mania. Here, I feel often as if Sexton has already wrapped herself in a shroud, and what can be heard through the wrapping is soaked in too much alcohol and self-pity to truly sparkle.
Not that I'm denigrating Sexton as a poet! I adore her work. But if you were someone who'd never read her before and wanted a great book to start with, I'd recommend her first, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, or Live or Die. These are full of powerful, fresh, new-sounding pieces.
There are amazing poems in this volume, so it's worth reading, but Sexton fans will "get it" and appreciate it much more than those new to her work.
Some of my favorites:
The Witch's Life
The Wall
Welcome Morning
Words
Lots of Sexton's work is dark and painful, interspersed with moments of hilarity, mania, or bizarre silliness, and this book is no different at its high points. However, the bulk of it reads (to me) as if Sexton was tremendously tired, worn out. The poems don't sparkle with her usual wit and rhythm. Though most of her work was intensely personal, these are so personal as to be boring in many instances. The language doesn't always convey, here, the depth of her misery or the heights of her mania. Here, I feel often as if Sexton has already wrapped herself in a shroud, and what can be heard through the wrapping is soaked in too much alcohol and self-pity to truly sparkle.
Not that I'm denigrating Sexton as a poet! I adore her work. But if you were someone who'd never read her before and wanted a great book to start with, I'd recommend her first, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, or Live or Die. These are full of powerful, fresh, new-sounding pieces.
There are amazing poems in this volume, so it's worth reading, but Sexton fans will "get it" and appreciate it much more than those new to her work.
Some of my favorites:
The Witch's Life
The Wall
Welcome Morning
Words
January 31, 2012
What I absolutely loved about Anne Sexton's work is how she would be so blunt, yet uncertain. The whole collection is about her seeking God. It always leads to you seeing the worst sides of yourself and this world. At the same time uncertainty can come from another side. The most difficult part of it, I find, is put wonderfully in "Locked Doors":
"I would like to unlock the door,
turn the rusty key
and hold each fallen one in my arms
but I cannot, I cannot,
I can only sit here on earth
at my place at the table."
"I would like to unlock the door,
turn the rusty key
and hold each fallen one in my arms
but I cannot, I cannot,
I can only sit here on earth
at my place at the table."
March 9, 2017
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 21, 2017
These poems read like conversations, to god perhaps - about god, faith, life. There's a definite sense of a struggle in her attempt to view life through religion or god, something that seems inherently unknowable. An interesting read.
December 28, 2007
A- I really like Anne Sexton's poetry and can't believe I haven't read her before; her poems are rich and deep yet lyrical.
January 4, 2008
My copy is well worn.
April 16, 2009
Anne Sexton addresses the questions of Who is God? and Who are we in relation to God? in these poems full of honest searching.
January 13, 2015
Given to me by a bridesmaid friend, I read this again 35 years later as a widow. Anne Sexton speaks of the hunger for meaning/God amid domestic banality and the inherent holiness of words in eloquent ways. Her poems also document unchecked mania. It's hard to differentiate the brilliance of intellect from the brokenness at times, and maybe it's irrelevant 40 years later. It's what's on the pages that counts, and much of the material holds up well:
"God was there like an island I had not rowed to."
"I will take a crowbar and pry out the broke pieces of God in me."
"We must all stop dying in the little ways."
"You did not fondle the weakness inside you though it was there. Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing. ...
Later, if you have endured a great despair, then you did it alone, getting a transfusion from the fire, picking the scabs off your heart, then wringing it out like a sock. ...
Later, when you face old age and its natural conclusion your courage will still be shown in the little ways.'
"Whisper something holy before you pinch me into the grave."
"Death looks on with a casual eye and picks at the dirt under his fingernail."
"So while I think of it, let me paint a thank-you on my palm for this God, this laughter of the morning, lest it go unspoken. The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard, dies young."
"Be careful of words, even the miraculous ones ...
I am in love with words. They are doves falling out of the ceiling. They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap. ...
The words aren't good enough, the wrong ones kiss me. ...
Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair."
"Love and a cough cannot be concealed."
"Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance."
"God was there like an island I had not rowed to."
"I will take a crowbar and pry out the broke pieces of God in me."
"We must all stop dying in the little ways."
"You did not fondle the weakness inside you though it was there. Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing. ...
Later, if you have endured a great despair, then you did it alone, getting a transfusion from the fire, picking the scabs off your heart, then wringing it out like a sock. ...
Later, when you face old age and its natural conclusion your courage will still be shown in the little ways.'
"Whisper something holy before you pinch me into the grave."
"Death looks on with a casual eye and picks at the dirt under his fingernail."
"So while I think of it, let me paint a thank-you on my palm for this God, this laughter of the morning, lest it go unspoken. The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard, dies young."
"Be careful of words, even the miraculous ones ...
I am in love with words. They are doves falling out of the ceiling. They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap. ...
The words aren't good enough, the wrong ones kiss me. ...
Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair."
"Love and a cough cannot be concealed."
"Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance."
December 31, 2015
In even a brief encounter with famous feminist writers, Anne Sexton's name is always one to pop up. Lumped into the same list as Virginia Wolf and Sylvia Plath, she is considered a genius and someone to laud. I don't. I didn't enjoy these poems at all. Angry and needlessly neurotic, they hold no clear theme or idea other than her own self-centered. True, she struggled with depression and mental illness in a time when mental illness was not understood or socially spoken about. True, she was a writer during a time when all writers were suppose to be emo and existential. But her work doesn't seem to hold meaning. It's just a jumble of disconnected words, as if she intentionally trying to be deep. But trying to be deep is different than being deep. I did think it interesting how she referenced Søren Kierkegaard more than once. An intriguing choice. Granted, he was heavily influential in philosophy, psychology, and religious - all of which Sexton had personal experience with - but it is still choice I wish to understand more. But unless she left some other written words about it, I doubt I will ever understand her thinking. Particular because I find her words overly-dramatic and ego-centric. Clearly, Sexton is not my cup of tea – but I am not surprised by this in the least.
April 18, 2012
It has been over 8 months now since I finished Sexton's final book of poetry. I've struggled with what to say about it, and now that time has passed, the details have fled a bit.
I'm left with impressions, the biggest of which is: This is one messy bunch of poems. There are some moments that are incisive, but there are other moments--and more of them--where I couldn't help but thinking that the poems would be so much better if Sexton had revised, if she had cleaned and tidied up the sometimes very rough edges of this verse. Perhaps such a critique is unfair for a book published posthumously--maybe Sexton would have revised if her life had lasted longer--but there it is: the poetry of The Awful Rowing Towards God is raw--to my eye and ear, not quite done.
I will say, though, that this volume ends with my favorite Sexton poem, "The Rowing Endeth" which, on its own, is worth the price of admission.
I'm left with impressions, the biggest of which is: This is one messy bunch of poems. There are some moments that are incisive, but there are other moments--and more of them--where I couldn't help but thinking that the poems would be so much better if Sexton had revised, if she had cleaned and tidied up the sometimes very rough edges of this verse. Perhaps such a critique is unfair for a book published posthumously--maybe Sexton would have revised if her life had lasted longer--but there it is: the poetry of The Awful Rowing Towards God is raw--to my eye and ear, not quite done.
I will say, though, that this volume ends with my favorite Sexton poem, "The Rowing Endeth" which, on its own, is worth the price of admission.
August 26, 2016
This is a really cohesive collection; it simultaneously made me feel as if I was falling into and out of a distinct, specific combination of introspection and retrospection. Sexton often voices quieter worries in a way that throws almost everything off; in her words, these doubts and experiences become disconnected, and potent.
(I read it through the first time and analyzed it as a jumble of emotions just looking for some tangible relief, but the second time through, I found a story, with a succinct beginning and ending.)
- - - -
Reading Sexton's poetry always leaves me feeling like I want to distance myself from my skin, which is something I'm constantly looking for: I like writing that makes you uncomfortable in a deep-set way.
(I read it through the first time and analyzed it as a jumble of emotions just looking for some tangible relief, but the second time through, I found a story, with a succinct beginning and ending.)
- - - -
Reading Sexton's poetry always leaves me feeling like I want to distance myself from my skin, which is something I'm constantly looking for: I like writing that makes you uncomfortable in a deep-set way.
September 12, 2012
This started strong, got pretty lousy in the middle, and ended fairly strong. At one point, I wondered where all the Bradbury imagery was coming from and I thought, "I bet Evanescence fans like her." When she dropped all that nonsense, she had a few great images. I also became more sympathetic when I learned that this was her last book and that she'd written it while depressed and in a mental hospital, and not long before committing suicide.
This was my first full work of Sexton's. It probably wasn't the best choice, but it was enough to pique my interest. I'll definitely be reading another of hers.
This was my first full work of Sexton's. It probably wasn't the best choice, but it was enough to pique my interest. I'll definitely be reading another of hers.
February 19, 2015
Anne Sexton's posthumous collection on the search for God. Heartbreaking the struggles portrayed between feeling worthless and evil, struggling with one's demons that are pushing the poet toward suicide.
When I was younger, I preferred Sylvia Plath over Anne Sexton when it came to suicide poets, but as I age, I find myself relating to Sexton more. An excellent read.
When I was younger, I preferred Sylvia Plath over Anne Sexton when it came to suicide poets, but as I age, I find myself relating to Sexton more. An excellent read.
October 14, 2016
Outstanding. Powerful.
Read
October 28, 2017"My faith
is a great weight
hung on a small wire."
is a great weight
hung on a small wire."
March 8, 2023
Absolutely beautiful, riveting, heartbreaking. Everything I needed and more. Thank you Anne Sexton.
May 23, 2025
I admire the freshness of Sexton’s metaphors, but at this point in my life I struggle with her rawness. I doubt it’s fair to accuse her of high school lit magazine angst; this seems to put the cart a bit before the horse. Nonetheless, I do think that her confessional mode has been achieved more effectively by poets like Jane Kenyon and Frank Bidart. In my opinion, Kenyon’s pastoralism and the equipoise of her voice cut down on the bathos. Meanwhile, Bidart’s pacing of revelation is quite similar to Sexton, but whereas Sexton becomes melodramatic in short lines composed of matter-of-fact declaratives, Bidart elevates this register out of bathos by his dramatic staging of the poem on the page. Bidart treats the poem as “an arena of force,” and conducts these energies into crescendos: sadness and negative realism are no longer monotone tropes but climactic self-discoveries. He captures the feeling these revelations possess to the one who has them, but Sexton—if you’re not reading from her headspace—feels a bit flat to me. She’s got some really novel and interesting ideas and images, which is why I gave this four stars, but I think there’s too much strained pathos here (particularly in her Holocaust poems, which I find cloying; one needn’t go so far as Hill’s ‘September Song’ to avoid excessive sentimentalism). Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair, though; for whatever reason, I prefer that a poet be not quite so direct. (I like poems that hide something just enough for it to be easy to find without seeming commonplace.)
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