[lit-ideas] Re: Anne Sexton, Saturday morning impressions
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 13:40:29 -0600
I like best poetry that startles me. The poet -- his or her life, values,
morality, philosophy, intelligence, history, ranking as a poet (by anyone)
-- is of very little concern to me. What if Hitler had been a poet, could
I be so cavalier about the poet-as-person as I claim to be? I don't know.
All I ask from a poet is startle -- startle at the use of language, startle
at an awareness, startle at horror -- startle at just being alive. Pretty
words don't impress me unless they're so damn pretty they startle me. I've
never found anything that I didn't want to read about -- no matter how
personal or confessional as long as it startles me into an awareness that
wasn't there a moment ago. That's all I look for. Take care.
On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Mike,
>
>
>
> If we group Lowell, Berryman, Schwartz, Plath and Sexton we have a
> collection of ambitious poets who were all clinically (mentally) ill.
> Lowell was a manic-depressive and not just a little bit. He managed to
> live to sixty but ruined his heart along the way. Schwartz was the
> craziest and produced the least. Berryman was a womanizer/alcoholic
> obsessed with his father’s suicide. Plath was a bit suicidal before she
> met Ted Hughes but when he settled her down in England with the kids she
> stuck her head in the over. And Sexton admired Plath for committing
> suicide before she did.
>
>
>
> I’ve wondered if Sexton was a sociopath. She writes of a whole range of
> things that most poets would be more emotional about. She though is
> remote, sarcastic, satirical and unaffected. She writes of being affected
> but I don’t see it. She didn’t like herself very much. She succeeded as a
> professional poet, won awards and was admired but I wonder if she respected
> the people who admired her. When you’ve written all you want to, start
> repeating yourself, or are just plain bored why not end it & go where
> Sylvia went?
>
>
>
> Of the above group I’ve for a long time thought Berryman the best. Recent
> critical views are causing me to rethink Lowell. My brief foray into Sexton
> criticism (mostly feministic adulation) and poetry hasn’t resulted in a
> change in my (poor) opinion of her poetry.
>
>
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>
> *From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Mike Geary
> *Sent:* Friday, November 28, 2014 4:47 PM
> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Anne Sexton
>
>
>
> Interesting, Lawrence. I've always loved her "prurience." But then
> that's just me -- a furious cock.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 9:53 PM, Lawrence Helm <
> lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I’ve been accumulating large numbers of books on poetic criticism but also
> the poetry being criticized if I didn’t happen to have it. One of the
> books of poetry was *The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton. *Sexton was born
> in 1928 just six years before me so I was reading her stuff, some of it, as
> it was published and was appalled by a lot of it. She could be outrageous
> – not like Sylvia Plath whom she admired but taking up subjects that most
> people would find . . . personal stuff most of us just don’t want to read
> about. Consider these titles
>
>
>
> “Menstruation at Forty”
>
> “The Celebration of my Uterus”
>
> “The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator”
>
> “Angel of Fire and Genitals”
>
> “The Fury of Cocks”
>
>
>
> Have you ever read a poem and shook your head at it the whole time you
> were reading? A lot of her poetry was like that for me, but some of it was
> surprisingly good – especially stuff she wrote while she was
> institutionalized. In the end I got rid of her books, but then recently I
> read something indicating that her reputation has been rehabilitated. Who
> am I to say that can’t happen after discovering that Billy Harkness was
> fictitious? So I’ll read some and try to avoid poetry with titles like the
> above, but sometimes the titles are misleading.
>
>
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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