By now all of you who reads my blogs and/or knows me, can gather I am a serious fan of Anne Sexton’s work. I continue to search out new material that opens the door to her as a writer foremost, and also as a human being so I can attempt to get a better understanding behind her work, from the perspective of Anne Sexton.
Below is a clip I discovered which has some candid moments through which Anne Sexton shows who she is as a person, real and alive.
The clip here and the few clips I have found on the internet can give us, who did not have a chance to know who she was, a lasting impression on the writer, her life, and the webs in between. Below is one of my favorite Sexton poems:
Ghosts
by Anne SextonSome ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.
Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.
But that isn't all.
Some ghosts are children.
Not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.
Now I'm thoroughly confused. I expected to be able to sense depression or anxiety, but instead she seems to exude this very abrupt self-confidence. I almost don't believe she committed suicide. Even the discussion around the psychiatric hospitals gives me the sense that she's going there almost out of curiosity or for research. I can only come away with the belief that the drugs altered her mind away from her love of poetry and life toward some destructive end. Very interesting none the less.
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