安妮·塞克斯顿

Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey; November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry often drew on her experiences with mental illness, including bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation, as well as aspects of her personal life. She was known for blending fairy tales, mythology, and religious imagery with autobiographical themes. Sexton’s work continues to be widely read and studied for its emotional intensity and lasting influence on contemporary American poetry. After her death, one of her daughters has alleged abuse in accounts discussed in some later biographies and scholarship.

Early life and family

Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mary Gray (Staples) Harvey (1901–1959) and Ralph Churchill Harvey (1900–1959). She had two older sisters, Jane Elizabeth (Harvey) Jealous (1923–1983) and Blanche Dingley (Harvey) Taylor (1925–2011). She spent most of her childhood in Boston. It is known that Sexton's parents were often abusive.

In 1945 she enrolled at Rogers Hall boarding school in Lowell, Massachusetts, later spending a year at Garland School.……

Poetry

After giving birth to her daughter Linda in 1953, Sexton started to suffer from postpartum depression and symptoms of bipolar disorder which was diagnosed in 1954. After the birth of her second daughter, Joy, in 1955, her postpartum depression worsened and she attempted suicide for the first time, which resulted in her being institutionalised in Westwood Lodge in 1956. There, she met Dr Martin Orne, who became her psychiatrist for the next 8 years.……

Death

On October 4, 1974, Sexton had lunch with Kumin to revise galleys for Sexton's manuscript of The Awful Rowing Toward God, scheduled for publication in March 1975 (Middlebrook 396). Later that day, she committed suicide at the age of 45.

In an interview over a year before her death, she explained she had written the first drafts of The Awful Rowing Toward God in 20 days with "two days out for despair and three days out in a mental hospital." She went on to say that she would not allow the poems to be published before her death.

Content and themes of work

Sexton is seen as the modern model of the confessional poet due to the intimate and emotional content of her poetry. Sexton often wrote about her struggles with mental illness. Topics regarded at the time as obscene and repulsive, especially when referred to by women often appeared in her verse. "She wrote openly about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, and drug addiction at a time when the proprieties embraced none of these as proper topics for poetry." wrote Maxine Kumin in . They met at a poetry workshop in Boston in 1957.……

Subsequent controversy

Following one of many suicide attempts and manic or depressive episodes, Sexton worked with therapist Martin Orne. He diagnosed her with what is now described as bipolar disorder, but his competence to do so is called into question by his early use of allegedly unsound psychotherapeutic techniques. During sessions with Sexton, he used hypnosis and sodium pentothal to recover supposedly repressed memories. During this process, he allegedly used suggestion to uncover memories of having been abused by her father.……

Legacy

Peter Gabriel dedicated his song "Mercy Street" (named for her play Mercy Street and inspired by his reading of her poem "45 Mercy Street") from his 1986 album So to Sexton. She has been described as a "personal touchstone" for Morrissey, former lead singer and lyricist of The Smiths. American composer David Conte set "Rowing," "Her Kind," "Ringing the Bells," "Riding the Elevator to the Sky," and "Us" in his cycle "Sexton Songs." She is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.