Anne Sexton

by Anne Sexton

  This poet could speak,

  There was no doubt about it.

  The top professor nodded

  To the next professor and he

  Agreed with the other teacher,

  Who wasn’t exactly a professor at all.

  There were plenty of poets,

  Delaying their briefcase

  To touch these honored words.

  They envied his reading

  And the ones with books

  Approved and smiled

  At the lesser poets who

  Moved unsurely, but knew,

  Of course, what they heard

  Was a notable thing.

  This is the manner of charm:

  After the clapping they bundled out,

  Not testing their fingers

  On his climate of rhymes.

  Not thinking how sound crumbles,

  That even honor can happen too long.

  A poet of note had read,

  Had read them his smiles

  And spilled what was left

  On the stage.

  All of them nodded,

  Tasting this fame

  And forgot how the poems said nothing,

  Remembering just—

  We heard him,

  That famous name.

  During the next twelve months she submitted poems to a number of the more prestigious literary magazines and by the fall had received several more acceptances: The Hudson Review had agreed to publish “The Double Image” [TB], “Elizabeth Gone” [TB], and “You, Dr. Martin” [TB], and The New Yorker had taken “The Road Back” [TB]. By early 1959 not one finished poem remained unsold. That April, Houghton Mifflin signed the contract for her first book, To Bedlam and Part Way Back. And in 1960 Anne wrote “poet” under the occupation column on her part of the joint income tax statement. Even her children began reporting to teachers and friends that a mother was “someone who types all day.”

  But her success with her poetry could not block out personal crises. Anne tried to care adequately for Joy, who had just returned home after a three-year absence; she fought to balance her relationship with Kayo against her embryonic career. In February of 1957, Mary Gray Harvey had developed breast cancer, and several months later Ralph Harvey had suffered a stroke, from which he made a slow recovery. Anne’s mother moved into the guest bedroom at 40 Clearwater Road. But in October of 1958, her cancer metastasized. For the next five months, Anne numbly monitored her mother’s slow decline as she visited the hospital room daily. On March 10, 1959, Mary Gray Harvey died. Three days later she was buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.

  In April, her father announced plans to marry again. Anne was appalled. She attempted to intervene, but he stood firm. Early in June, several hours after he had lain down for his customary Sunday nap, the maid found him dead of a cerebral hemorrhage.

  Within four months, both Anne’s parents had gone, leaving a small legacy for their third daughter: a mink coat, a diamond, a few rare books, a ruby, and some stocks and bonds. They could not know that the richest inheritance they had left was an abundance of unvoiced emotion which would fill Anne’s poetry for years to come.

  [To Mary Gray Harvey]

  [40 Clearwater Road]

  Christmas Day—1957

  Dear Mother,

  Here are some forty-odd pages of the first year of Anne Sexton, Poet. You may remember my first sonnet written just after Christmas one year ago. I do not think all of these are good. However, I am not ashamed of them. They are not in chronological order, but I have arranged them in a sort of way, in a sort of a story. But not too much or too well. I have tried to give a breather between the more difficult ones that use a more modern idiom. A few are obscure. I do not apologize for them. I like them. Mood can be as important as sense. Music doesn’t make sense and I am not so sure the words have to, always.

  These are for you to do with as you wish. If you want to send them to that man in New York—do so. Simply put them in a manila envelope and address and fold (inside the other with the manuscript) another return envelope. (enclose some) Take these both to the post office and have them weighed and put postage on both. I feel that this is the only gracious way to ask anyone to read (and then return) poetry. And do the same with Merrill Moore. I sort of hope you won’t separate and fold some for mailing in a regular envelope as then they will never get back together again. However, do as you wish, they are yours (short of telling someone to publish them).

  I know that they are lousy with typographical errors but I did my best—am not a graduate of Katie Gibbs and have a peculiar lack of spelling know-how.

  I think my favorite poem is the first in the book (this may be because it is fairly recent—poets always prefer their latest things I hear—and it seems so). As you can see I have developed no one style as yet. But at first it is better, and is sort of chain verse. Both of these were difficult but fun—rather like a crossword puzzle. There are no sonnets. I am not ready for sonnets yet, somehow.

  I hope you can have some fun with them. Now if you meet some interested person you will have these to show. Although it is a rarity to find anyone even willing to read poems—or poetry of my voice. Although there is nothing new in the manner in which I have written these, it seems new to most poet tasters. I do not write for them. Nor for you. Not even for the editors. I want to find something and I think, at least “today” I think, I will. Reaching people is mighty important, I know, but reaching the best of me is most important right now.

  I did not win the Ingram Merrill Foundation Contest. However, this is just a start for me … I imagine I can always get printed from the psychiatric angle with preface by Dr. Martin—but he won’t talk about it until therapy is over—and by then I may not want to do it anyhow … There are lots of contests for first books of poetry that have real merit—most usually no money but a real start … I hope I am going to continue to improve and if I do I’m going to aim high. And why not.

  I love you. I don’t write for you, but know that one of the reasons I do write is that you are my mother.

  Love,

  Anne

  As the workshop with John Holmes drew to a close in the spring of 1958, she gained the confidence to send her poetry to well-known journals. “For Johnny Pole on the Forgotten Beach” [TB] was accepted by The Antioch Review in late May when she received a letter from one of their editors, Nolan Miller.

  She liked to say that Miller and The Antioch Review discovered her, despite the fact that she had already published elsewhere. But it was true that after her Antioch appearance some of the better-known magazines in the country did begin to publish her work. Through Miller she applied for and received a scholarship for the Antioch Summer Writers’ Conference in August, going expressly to study with W. D. Snodgrass, then her favorite poet.

  [To Nolan Miller

  THE ANTIOCH REVIEW]

  40 Clearwater Rd.

  June 1st, 1958

  Dear Mr. Miller:

  […] I am twenty nine (am not sure if this qualifies me as a “young writer”) and have been writing for about a year. I have been published in The Fiddlehead, The Compass Review (reprinted in The New York Herald Tribune), and have just received an acceptance from The New Orleans Poetry Journal (for a really long poem—which is pleasing). I have started to get quite a bit of encouragement from various editors; i.e., Ralph Freedman at The Western Review, Karl Shapiro at the Schooner, and Accent and the other morning received a phone call from one of the editors of Audience asking for more poems (ten, he said) as they liked one and wanted to print more than one. I have about twenty rejection slips from Howard Moss at The New Yorker saying “please send more” (am not sure what this means as they add up each week, after week—but it seems encouraging) also a couple of personal letters from Anne Freedgood at Harper’s and also The Atlantic … I didn’t mean to get going on what might happen but hasn’t, however the list of published looked so small.

  I had been thinking of applying
for your scholarship before I received your letter because it looks like the best one. However, did not because of the long trip out there which is an expense. I had even asked John Holmes (we are in a workshop together) if he would write a letter for me and he had agreed to do this. However, I guess I don’t need his letter now.

  I would particularly like to meet W. D. Snodgrass because his poem “Heart’s Needle” startled me so when I read it, that I just sat there saying “Why didn’t I write this”. I admire his style and know that I need to study with someone I feel this way about.

  Am writing this in a rush so that I can mail the revision of “Johnny Pole” [TB] tonight. I excuse this hurried and rambling letter (to myself at 1:00 A.M.) by saying that poets just aren’t expected to write sensible letters—just poems. Hope also you will forgive the fading type—am in need of a new ribbon.

  Many thanks for giving me the chance to revise this poem as I knew it needed it—just needed someone to tell me.

  Sincerely,

  Anne Sexton

  When Anne met W. D. Snodgrass at the Antioch Writers’ Conference, she fulfilled one of her first ambitions: to establish personal contact with a worthy mentor. Immediately following her return to Newton, she began an intense passionate correspondence with Snodgrass which set the pattern for many later friendships-by-letter.

  [To W. D. Snodgrass]

  40 Clearwater Road

  August 31st—[1958]

  Dear Mr. Snodgrass honey—

  I have three pictures of you (and others) on my desk—they are placed there for inspiration. They do not work. But they will. You look sleepy in this one and Jan [Snodgrass], beside you, looks earnest and sweet with that one curl promising something. In another you are busy telling a bunch of sitting ducks something from your desk. Here you are looking young and rather handsome by the mike and Jessy West. She must be telling you how [illegible] genius you are or something—else why do you look so humble and pretty? I like your pictures—otherwise I wouldn’t believe it … some funny dream I walked through … I do believe it because you were real. I was afraid that the “HEART’S NEEDLE” man would not be real. Thank you for being—and Mrs. Snodsy and Buzzy too. […]

  Once I said to Dr. Martin that I didn’t care if I were crazy forever if I could only write well.

  Somewhere, sometime at Antioch this plan seemed to fall down. Everyone seemed to like my poetry and the doctor was right. It isn’t enough … That was another thing about meeting you—I was afraid to find out what you were like. I loved your poetry—even this was dangerous—but unavoidable considering the unconscious area of my guilt. Then I met you and unavoidably you were special. So now I love you and your wife and your Buzzy and your Cynthia and—well, “it makes me nervous.” (Jarrell? I think, you quoted this).

  Are you going to answer this? If so I’ll ask some questions—like where does Robert Lowell live—if I knew I’d write him and ask if he would like me as a student for his graduate course in poetry writing. It says in the catalogue that students may enter without degree with instructor’s o.k.… There are six Robert Lowells in the book.

  If you do come to Boston you had better come see us, or visit if you like. Would you have a place to stay—I could put you up—though we have no real room, could shift about—could the three of you manage in one room? Warning: my husband is not bohemian (sp?) but is at one with the world like the farmer—at one with a conventional world—but good man. Have been thinking that he is just right for me. He is solid; I am lonely. Why do I ask him to be lonely too? He doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I have stopped trying to change and started to appreciate … (all because of your devious analysis of the “FARMER’S WIFE” [TB]). Come to visit if you can.

  I enclose yesterday’s poem. I have so much I could write about that I do understand—but could only write this rather trivial thing because I didn’t understand. I’m not sending it because I think it’s a good poem—but in case your analytic bent has been frustrated lately and you’d like to figure this out. The only thing I can guess is that “I’d like to be there,” but can’t because I’m dead and the poets know they are dead—or maybe?????? I don’t know—better get my analyst back before I fail all understanding and go back to thinking portraits do talk.

  Wasn’t Ruth [Soter, another writer from the Antioch workshop] cute to call you? We had a mutual farewell analysis and drinks on tuesday (she left Wed.) … George Starbuck (in our Boston workshop) is also up for the Lamont Award from Houghton Mifflin. John Holmes says it is a tight year (talked with him and told him all about Antioch). He is on The National Book Award committee—or judge of whatever you call it.

  It is late at night—but no excuse because I always write sloppy letters. I forgot to ask you—did you really live next door to the jail—or what does it mean? Why do I associate this to mental institution? (is it only MY association? or not?)—it is followed with “when I grew back from helplessness when I grew able.”—

  Hell, I’m never going to stop writing you tonight—there is just more to say.

  I have avoided mentioning some of the things you said about “By Nameless Flesh”—first of all am still too confused about its real meaning … I keep (even now forgetting to tell you this one true part—so will do so quickly before I forget it again). After I got out of my jail (institution) they said I wasn’t well enough to have children … But got the oldest five months later (as I told you) … Some months later I thought my only chance for emotional survival was to leave my husband. He said that if I did he would take the children—that no court would give me (dangerous mad me) custody of the children … Everyone said I wasn’t good for them (my mother-in-law mainly)—but the oldest proved very unhappy away from me (various symptoms) so could keep her. The youngest, Joy, was only eight months when she left. Did the poem mean, nameless—ie. you have no father—I am your only parent—? Did the poem try to give her up? How many times I read your poem, crying, and not knowing what and why. “you visit me sometimes”—they would bring Joy down for the day—she would cry for her Nana … I don’t care (I would pretend she wasn’t mine) which worked until “and still you are my daughter” … also, “you wheezed for breath … drowning there.”—Before I went inside the jail Joy had been very sick with a croup-like attack. My husband went on his first trip and one night I heard this funny sound like a dog choking—went into Joy’s room and she was almost dead—no air. I didn’t even know what croup was—had never heard of it. I took her into the bathroom and tried to breathe into her mouth—no time to call a doctor—then finally I turned on the hot water thinking steam would help (like a stuffy cold)—maybe I had read about it—sometime—All that night (it was—just realized it was Easter—) I held her in the bathroom—rocking her and thinking “she will die in my arms”—I didn’t dare leave her because she would stop breathing I thought—I don’t know why—but am just beginning to understand this! You said, “Easter has come around again” and when it did—three years later (from that Easter night when I watched the light come slowly up through the steamy bathroom window) I just went down and got her.

  I do not dare write this true poem—it is too mixed up with the influence of your poem. My “Nameless Flesh” was my fictional way of feeling my way out of it. Maybe now that I’ve gone this far I will write it again—I will, if I have to … If so I will have to be a “shore rocking” your lines off. I like them too much.

  Sorry to have gone on so long and easily—

  Love to you and Mrs. Snodsy—

  Anne

  In September, Anne applied to Robert Lowell’s graduate writing seminar at Boston University. A week later, she received a letter from Lowell, a leading American poet and author of For the Union Dead, accepting her.

  The class met on Tuesdays from two to four in a small room. Although smoking was forbidden, Anne lit up furtively, defiant as in her high school days, using her shoe as an ashtray. In the seminar she worked again with the poet George Starbuck, then an editor at
Houghton Mifflin, and met Sylvia Plath, who had recently returned from England with her husband, Ted Hughes. All of them were struggling for recognition and publication.

  After each class, accompanied by Sylvia and George, Anne drove to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in her old Ford. There they sat upstairs on the mezzanine with snowy shoes, umbrellas, and manuscripts, ordering martini after martini while they “workshopped” their poems. Then, they moved from the muted elegance of the Ritz to the vinyl and plastic of the nearby Waldorf Cafeteria, where they dined for seventy cents each.

  At this point in her career, Anne was making the friendships that were to shape her life as a poet.

  [To Robert Lowell]

  [40 Clearwater Road]

  September 15th, 1958

  Dear Mr. Lowell:

  What a fine letter you wrote me. I am considering framing it to prove to all comers that poets are people. I am so pleased that you think my work shows promise, that I shall need no new proof for possibly a month.

  Since receiving your letter I have been busy begging money from old fat relatives. Today, with 90 dollars in my fist, I called the registrar’s office. However, it seems they are not bouncing with joy at the thought of “special students” with no particular degrees. A Mr. Wilder said I would have to wait until after registration and see if there were too many students in the class. I forward this information to you because I gather he will present you with the problem. I hasten to add, since he may forget my name, that I am one of the vagrant applications that awaits your decision. He asked me if I were connected with any publication. I am not. In fact, I am totally disconnected from everything. I did not mention my slim list of credits, thinking he might wonder WHAT I was talking about. I am supposed to call him on Friday morning at eleven.

  If this doesn’t pan out I can always try for the second semester. I am even tempted to sit watching your lovely letter of praise and forget all about the work and criticism and growth that I would enjoy working with you.

  I am more than a little shy of great factories of humanity, like B.U. and it will take considerable moral courage to get on with this complicated application, registration and these new hurdles. Somewhere, I hope I will get to a classroom where Robert Lowell is talking about poetry. I don’t want the three credits, I am not sweetened with a background of knowledge, am even defensive saying (“I don’t know anything.”)—but if you can squeeze me in, I will be there.