anne sexton: part IV

The Nonfiction Files is a weekly journal of my adventures reading my toppling piles of nonfiction books. I won't be posting reviews, but rather my thoughts about what I'm reading, while I'm reading it.

i am playing along with elizabeth.

i am currently reading Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Middlebrook. you can read my posts here, here and here.

synopsis from publisher:

anne sexton, who died at forty-five by her own hand in 1974, was, as she herself claimed, "the only confessional poet," and is one of the most widely read poets of recent decades. in this, the first biography, diane wood middlebrook reveals the rewards of ten years labor, unearthing the multiple truths of how anne sexton's deeply troubled life and powerfully candid work interacted. the result is a model of the biographer's art, a harrowing and uplifting tale of a gifted woman's life.

anne sexton grew up in a conventional middle-class massachusetts family, married in her teens, and worked for a while as a fashion model. her life displayed little to anticipate artistic achievement until after the birth of her second daughter, when she suffered a suicidal breakdown. her psychic identity was so severely threatened that even psychiatric intervention had little effect, until her therapist suggested one day that she might try writing poetry - an inspired idea, immediately acted on. sexton soon joined a writing group, which brought her into contact with her closest poetic friend, maxine kumin, and entry into the orbit of such poets as robert lowell, george starbuck, and sylvia plath, then living in boston.

from the day sexton began writing in 1956, her poetry and her inner life worked in tandem to give her eighteen years of wild productivity, which produced nearly a dozen books. among her achievements were a pulitzer prize for her third volume, live or die,fellowships, professorships, stardom in a performing musical group called anne sexton and her kind, attempt to write for the theatre, and a hectic emotional life which severely strained her husband, her daughters, and her lovers and friendss, including james wright, w.d. snodgrass, anthony hecht, tillie olsen, and others. in her later years she reached desperately toward religious belief.

middlebrook's story of anne sexton's life and work is a model of fairness and discernment. with special cooperation from the family, she has had privileged access to the records and testimony of sexton's principal psychiatrist and to the surviving family's records and memories, and has achieved a tender comprehension of sexton's life as a woman and keen insight into her work as a poet. anne sexton was the most bewitching and exasperating of women, as every page of this magisterial biography demonstrates. it is not a tale for children nor for the innocent, for sexton's complicity in her own self-destruction was the despair of her friends, to many of whom this biography will reveal more than they understood while sexton was alive.



my final thoughts:

the last section covered 1968-1974. i was actually surprised how it ended. i thought that kayo left anne, but it was the other way around. the last few years of her life were some of her best. she had achieved a sort of celebrity status, continued to win awards and fellowships and honorary degrees. she was able to hike up her reading fees. she started a chamber rock group to accompany her readings in order to reach a younger audience. she was invited to write a play for off-broadway. she continued to churn out poetry and published three more poetry books before her death. she was making strides in her therapy and was off her thorazine. and it was during this time that she started seriously teaching. she was a non-tenured professor at boston university. ironically, it was her seeming stability that made her decide to leave her husband. it was an utter and devastating blow to her husband, his mother and her children. at first she stayed with friends, but they quickly tired of taking care of her. she did engage in love affairs, but those fizzled out. after her divorce was finalized she began to deeply regret making the move, realizing that she needed the stability that kayo provided for her. she became very lonely and missed her old family life. this was her undoing and ultimately led to her taking her life. she was such an unstable personality that i wonder if she would have lived as long as she did if she hadn't met kayo.

this was a fascinating read. i have to go dig out my copy of sexton's The Complete Poems now.