The 20th Century American poet, Anne Sexton once said, “Poetry should be a shock to the senses. It should almost hurt.” Sexton displays this belief through her writing style and set of controversial themes, which unquestionably shocked critics at times. Many of Sexton’s poems reflect on her personal struggles with mental illness and her numerous encounters with suicidal feelings. Sexton became known as a confessional poet because of her autobiographical style of writing. The main themes of her poetry are depression and death. “Wanting to Die”, “The Truth the Dead Know”, “The Abortion”, and “The Starry Night”, are all examples of Sexton’s writing that portray her central poetic themes. Through the use of vivid visual imagery, especially natural …show more content…
Sexton wrote her second book, All My Pretty Ones, during a very hard time in her life. “During the years of her apprenticeship as a poet, Sexton herself had lost a beloved great-aunt and both of her parents to premature deaths; and her own chronic illness, punctuated with suicide attempts, had felt like a death threat miraculously survived”(Middlebrook 3). Poems such as "The Truth the Dead Know," "The Starry Night," and "The Abortion" within this book, are “elegies or eloquent evocations of these losses” (Middlebrook 3). All My Pretty Ones and her next book Live or Die contained some of Sexton’s best and most notable poems. Both books focused on Sexton’s curiosity with living or dying as Sexton continuously struggled with her depression and contemplated suicide. In the 1970s, as the very lonely Sexton became addicted to drugs and alcohol, she reached her mental breaking point. After finishing what she planned to be her last book, Sexton sat inside her car in her closed garage until she killed herself by carbon monoxide poisoning. Sexton’s death did not come as a shock to many because she left behind books full of warning signs with the majority of her poems written in a depressive mindset with a central theme of death. One critic said that, “Sexton’s poetry saved her as long as saving was possible” (Levertov …show more content…
In the second stanza, Sexton drives from the funeral to the Cape to “cultivate” herself or deal with her grief. She describes the images she sees on the cape such as the sun shining from the sky and uses a simile to describe the sea that “swings in like an iron gate”. The scenery, unlike Sexton’s emotions, are very lively and happy and the usage of this imagery makes the reader understand that the world was still turning even through the speaker’s life had just stopped due to her loss (Johnson 3). The end of the second stanza concludes with “in another country people die”, which brings back the poem’s theme of death and returns the poem to a more dismal tone showing that she cannot escape death or her grief. In the third stanza, Sexton addresses a loved one who is with her. Despite the wind falling like stones from “white hearted water” or the grief hitting her, her loved one touches her and she realizes that unlike the dead, she is not
My initial response to the poem was a deep sense of empathy. This indicated to me the way the man’s body was treated after he had passed. I felt sorry for him as the poet created the strong feeling that he had a lonely life. It told us how his body became a part of the land and how he added something to the land around him after he died.
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
Part I is particularly anecdotal, with many of the poems relating to the death of Trethewey’s mother. The first part begins with an epitaph from the traditional Wayfaring Stranger, which introduces the movement of the soul after death, and the journey towards the ‘home’ beyond. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance of the soul’s movement after death. The ‘home’ described in the epitaph is a place of comfort and familiarity, where the speaker returns to their mother. In contrast, Trethewey describes the ‘home’ she returns to after her mother’s death as a hollow place, the journey back to which is incredibly
I have chosen to write about Virginia Woolf, a British novelist who wrote A Room of One’s Own, To the Lighthouse and Orlando, to name a few of her pieces of work. Virginia Woolf was my first introduction to feminist type books. I chose Woolf because she is a fantastic writer and one of my favorites as well. Her unique style of writing, which came to be known as stream-of-consciousness, was influenced by the symptoms she experienced through her bipolar disorder. Many people have heard the word "bipolar," but do not realize its full implications. People who know someone with this disorder might understand their irregular behavior as a character flaw, not realizing that people with bipolar mental illness do not have control over their moods. Virginia Woolf’s illness was not understood in her lifetime. She committed suicide in 1941.
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
While thinking of death, thoughts of grief, despair and worry arise. Perhaps this is a product of the darkness often times portrayed of death from contemporary literature, movies, and music. Movies such as “Schindler’s List” and music such as Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” are just a few examples of entertainment that show the darkness and finality of death. These forms of medium only present the idea, as no one who wrote them actually experienced death and therefore the dark thoughts associated with it are ambiguous. In “712 (Because I Could not Stop for Death)”, poet Emily Dickinson also shows the darkness associated but she has a different view of death. She writes from the standpoint of a narrator
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
Kasdano, Michelle. "Poetry: The Legacy of Anne Sexton." Helium (2007). Web. 31 Aug 2011. .
The third decade of the twentieth century brought on more explicit writers than ever before, but none were as expressive as Anne Sexton. Her style of writing, her works, the image that she created, and the crazy life that she led are all prime examples of this. Known as one of the most “confessional” poets of her time, Anne Sexton was also one of the most criticized. She was known to use images of incest, adultery, and madness to reveal the depths of her deeply troubled life, which often brought on much controversy. Despite this, Anne went on to win many awards and go down as one of the best poets of all time.
Sexton compares Plath’s suicide to an old belonging in the couplet, “what is your death but an old belonging” (54-55). The couplet serves to convey that the speaker is moving past the initial shock of her friend’s death. The comparison of Plath’s death to an old belonging implies that the speaker used to have a strong emotional attachment and understanding of Plath’s suicide, but now, it is more of a memory that lingers than something that consumes her mind every day. Even so, the death of Plath still impacted the speaker on a deep level because Plath’s death involuntarily forced her to contemplate and to reflect on her own emotions and thoughts on suicide. She experiences an emotional journey that places her on the other end of the death in which she once fantasized. The term “old belonging” illustrates how the speaker previously dreamed and longed for death. However, after experiencing the emotional toll of being on the other side of the death that she once coveted, she reconsiders her desires. The tone has shifted from one of mourning and envy to something that she used to desire, an “old belonging” (55). The sharp left turn that is transmitted in the speaker’s tone articulates the emotional journey she has endured. Therefore, the relation of Plath’s death to an old belonging displays how the speaker no longer wants that death, but she still remembers what it feels like to be the person with thoughts of
The poem "Her Kind" by Anne Sexton displays an aspect of the author’s life in a more emotional state. In the poem Sexton describes her journey of life as a woman; she remembers all the hardships she has been challenged with and emphasizes that her path through life was not all in sunshine. Throughout, the poem she uses incredible language to describe her hardships that she faced. She overall connects this to the fact that she is a woman. Anne is not angry at the fact that she has to face all the hardships as a woman but instead agrees that she is a brave woman. Although, her journey through life has made her feel constantly criticized as well as an outcast in the female world, she believed that she is just one of a kind.
Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both parallel and opposing views on death.
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
Through the progression of the poem the speaker goes from ignoring Death to realizing only through Death can immortality can be obtained. She does not see Death as the blessing that it is, she was all too happy to go about her life toiling away and never paying it any mind. Once she decided to go in a carriage ride with Death and Immortality she saw all the stages of life and through it all Death has the power to give one the ability to live forever.
Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. Everyone will experience death, whether it is of a loved one or oneself. In W.H. Auden’s poem “Funeral Blues” (1003), he describes such a catastrophic event and the drastic effect that it has on his life. It is interesting how people choose to accept this permanent and expected event, death. Similarly, Emily Dickinson has written many poems about death, such as “The last Night that She lived” (843), which describes a family waiting for a woman or girl to die and the dreary and depressed mood that exists within the household. Mourning is considered a perfectly healthy reaction when someone who is deeply loved and cared about passes on, and this is illustrated in “The Memory of Elena” (1070-71) by Carolyn Forche. She writes about the events following a funeral and also flashes back to the actual moment that a wife has watched her husband die. W.H Auden’s “Funeral Blues,” Carolyn Forche’s “The Memory of Elena,” and Emily Dickinson’s “The last Night that She lived” are all poems which share death as their subject matter, but differ in the fact that they discuss death in a unique style with a variety of literary devices to make them more effective.