Anne Sexton: Poetry as Therapy
Many great literary and artistic geniuses have been troubled with deep depression and mental illness. Anne Sexton is an example of a poet with such problems who used her personal despair to inspire her poetic works. Not all of Sexton's work is based solely on her mental health; but a good portion of her work is influenced by her constant bouts with depression. As she struggled to deal with her own marital infidelity and the problems associated with being a female poet in a male dominated genre, she combined the theme of depression with one based on the roles of women in society. In turn, she gained a wider audience and received recognition for her work. But all the fame and fortune were not enough to compete with her lack of mental stability.
Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey on November 9, 1928 in Newton, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of three daughters to Ralph and Mary Gray Staples Harvey. Life in the Harvey household was difficult for Anne. Her parents, especially her father, were very concerned with appearances and she failed them in these standards most of the time. As the Harvey children grew older, the household became much more tense. Anne's father was an alcoholic and her mother drank nearly as much as he did. Her mother's failed aspirations to become a famous writer increased the tension among the family members as Anne's mother began to resent her husband and children (Middlebrook 4-16). The ingredients for future depression were already in the works for Anne. There was a history of mental illness in the family with both Anne's great aunt and grandfather.
As Anne grew older, she was pretty and popular with the boys. However, her performance in school was lacking in m...
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...tudied today but the inspiration for her poetry, her constant depression, forced Sexton to take her own life. In her work, she expressed the inner torture she endured and explored the depths of her mind and society.
Works Cited
Kumin, Maxine. Foreword. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. xix.
Middlebrook, Diane Wood. Anne Sexton: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Parini, Jay. Editor. The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. New York: Columba University Press, 1995.
Sexton, Anne. "Her Kind." Kennedy, X.J. and Dana Gioia, eds. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 770.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. "Sexton, Anne Gray Harvey." 13 November 2001.
The story of Anne's childhood must be appreciated in order to understand where her drive, inspiration, and motivation were born. As Anne watches her parents go through the tough times in the South, Anne doesn't understand the reasons as to why their life must this way. In the 1940's, at the time of her youth, Mississippi built on the foundations of segregation. Her mother and father would work out in the fields leaving Anne and her siblings home to raise themselves. Their home consisted of one room and was in no comparison to their white neighbors, bosses. At a very young age Anne began to notice the differences in the ways that they were treated versus ...
Everyone has once been someone that they aren’t necessarily ashamed of, but something they aren’t anymore. When you’re in school, everyone is different; between the popular kids, the jocks, the cheerleader, the dorks, the Goths, and all the other “types” of people. In “Her Kind,” Anne Sexton shows that she has been a lot of different women, and she is not them now. In this paper we will be diving into the meanings behind the displaced “I,” the tone and reparation, and who Anne Sexton really is and how that affects what she is trying to let people see through this poem.
LSD-25 or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide was first synthesized and used by pharmaceutical chemist Albert Hoffman. LSD-25 is an illegal drug belonging to the hallucinogen category. The physical effects are eye enlargement, pupil dilation and sweating. However the common psychological effects are euphoria, no recollection of time, visual distortions, and mentally visualizing geometric patterns and shapes, which lasts about 6-9 hours or sometimes longer. Though non-addictive LSD-25 can induce anxiety, paranoia, negative perceptions such as frightening visuals and sounds, feelings of insanity, and produce long-term effects such as flashbacks.
United States. National Institute on Drug Abuse.DrugFacts: Hallucinogens - LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, and PCP. 2009. Non-print. .
You may ask, what is LSD? LSD is a type of acid or known by its scientific name Lysergic Acid Diethylamide which is a psychedelic. It was discovered by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in 1943. Although researched, scientist could not find a medical use for it.
National Drug Intelligence Center. "LSD Fast Facts." Welcome to the United States Department of Justice. May 2003. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .
Larrea, J.J. "Fifty Years Later, LSD Gains New Popularity in High Schools." (Online) Available http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/tryptamines/lysergic/lsd_use_up.html, 27 September 2000.
Jokinen, Anniina. "Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature." Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. N.p., 1996. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. http://www.luminarium.org/
When discovered, LSD had a considerable research interest. However, this stopped after it was placed under the US controlled substance act in 1970. It was classified a schedule one drug, meaning it had a high risk for abuse and no accepted medical use. There are no current, legal human studies with LSD, although there are some with MDMA, DMT, and psilocybin. But, the FDA has recently approved a human study examining how LSD affects the brain’s neurotransmitter systems. Harvard Medical School is also looking into a study on how hallucinogens affect cluster headaches. In my opinion, there has to be some way to use a derivative of LSD in either psychological research or treatment and I believe researchers will eventually find one.
LSD stands for Iysergic acid diethylamide. LSD is a hallucinate know to be the most powerful drug of this kind. LSD is commonly known as acid. This drug changes a person’s mental state by distorting the perception of reality to the point where at high doses hallucination occurs. Acid is derived from a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. It is semi-synthetic. It’s manufactured chemically in illicit laboratories, except for a small percent, which is produced legally for research.
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.
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.
Since the 1930’s LSD has been a topic of discussion. LSD is known as one of the most controversial drugs ever created. Everything about the drug is mysterious and does not follow the norm of society. Users of LSD are people from solid middle- and upper-class backgrounds. They have many opportunities to pursue higher education and to have successful careers (Petechuk 9). To most, this statistic would seem unearthly, but LSD is notorious for giving keen insights to life, which is the main interest for consumers. The components of LSD are lysergic acid and diethylamide. LSD is often classified as a synthetic drug because it is produced only in a laboratory (Petechuk 10). Addiction is a recurrence for many drugs with the exception of LSD. “LSD is not considered an addictive drug because it does not produce the same compulsive drug-seeking behavior as cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, alcohol, or nicotine” (Everything).
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is categorized as a hallucinogen, psychedelic, and a psychotomimetic. LSD is not as commonly used like nicotine and heroin but is still prevalent in the world today. This drug has been around for many years taking users to different worlds and giving a whole new sight on the world around us. Despite the fact LSD is an illegal drug, without it certain movies, songs, and art would not be around that many people know and love today. Many drugs do not have much of a benefitting effect, but LSD does have a few, along with some bad effects as well. Ever since the creation of LSD, scientists have been gaining knowledge of the effects it has on the human body and also the effects on society once it was released to the public.
While hallucinogenic drugs have been used for centuries, it was not until the discovery by Western society of their mind-altering properties (Hofmann 1959; Stoll 1947; Delgado, Pedro L; Moreno, Francisco A) that these compounds began to be more widely used for treatment of mental disorders (see Abraham, Aldridge & Gogia 1996; Strassman 1995; Neill 1987; McGlothlin & Arnold 1971; Freedman 1968; Delgado, Pedro L; Moreno, Francisco A). Hallucinates are derived from plants or the fungus that grows on plants, the first recorded hallucination was a tossup between mental issues that were then used for a political push or the ergotamine during the Salem witch trails in 1962, far after that Albert Hofmann became the creator of LSD from ergotamine a chemical from the fungus ergot, in Switzerland 1938. From that time LSD has played a part in history, studies have shown that much has changed in the half-century since LSD was first used by psychiatrists and then found widespread recreational use in the 1960's and 70's. Modern psychiatry has embraced drugs that affect the same brain molecules that are tweaked by hallucinogens (Blakeslee,