Sexton, Anne (Vol. 2) | Sexton, Anne 1928–
Sexton, Anne 1928–
An American poet of the "confessional" school, Mrs. Sexton is the author of To Bedlam and Part Way Back and Live or Die. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
Anne Sexton's poems [in To Bedlam and Part Way Back] so obviously come out of deep, painful sections of the author's life that one's literary opinions scarcely seem to matter; one feels tempted to drop them furtively into the nearest ashcan, rather than be caught with them in the presence of so much naked suffering. The experiences she recounts are among the most harrowing that human beings can undergo: those of madness and near-madness, of the pathetic, well-meaning, necessarily tentative and perilous attempts at cure, and of the patient's slow coming back into the human associations and responsibilities which the old, previous self still demands. In addition to being an extremely painful subject, this is perhaps a major one for...
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