nerd knits

Anne Sexton.

I’ve mentioned before that I used to write poetry. I’ve idolized many poets as my tastes have developed – Bukowski, Plath, Sapphire, even Jim Morrison. But Anne…oh, Anne….

The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
(From “The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator”)

My parents got me this book for Christmas when I was…oh, 14 or 15, I think. To be perfectly honest, I don’t much enjoy reading poetry. Even when I was in the thick of it, I didn’t care to read anyone’s poetry, including my own. But I devoured Anne. I was enchanted by her life. I found strength and beauty in her madness (she was first hospitalized for depression in 1954, and ended her life in 1974.) Without going too much into my own emotional instability (I’m better now, thank you, if not yet “well”), I would read certain poems about her depression obsessively, marveling at how she could so perfectly explain the thoughts crashing through my head.

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.
(From “Wanting to Die”)

Love poems, suicide notes, lamentations of the body and the spirit…she was one of the first confessional poets, and even if my pen has run dry, she keeps me company.

My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget how one word is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
something I might have said…
but did not.
(From “Said the Poet to the Analyst”)

(I’m writing these as separate entries – if you just want the ABC-Along entries, choose the appropriate category from the sidebar. Also, I promise that they won’t all be so morose and serious.)