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lsparrow's review
4.0
This is a collection to come back to! I love the imagery and the journey that the poems take. It is not for the faint of heart.
itsfarah3's review
5.0
Brilliant!!
i actually read it because someone said that reading Anne Sexton feels like reading Sylvia Plath for the first time, so i wanted to give it a try. And yes, they were right mainly because Anne's and Sylvia's poetry are about subjects such as depression, suicide and womanhood. but in my opinion Anne's poetry is much more accessible than Sylvia's.
will definitely read these poems again and again
i actually read it because someone said that reading Anne Sexton feels like reading Sylvia Plath for the first time, so i wanted to give it a try. And yes, they were right mainly because Anne's and Sylvia's poetry are about subjects such as depression, suicide and womanhood. but in my opinion Anne's poetry is much more accessible than Sylvia's.
will definitely read these poems again and again
frankenqueer's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, and Mental illness
salmaamr's review
5.0
I cannot believe it took me nine whole days to finish this book. I am glad it took me nine whole days to finish it. I came across this book via a recommendation of books that women should read. I have loved the chronological order that the poems have followed; it gave me a sense of what the author felt through consecutive periods of time. There were some beautiful poems, and some of which were terribly sad. But even the poems that have discussed themes that I have yet to encounter in life as a woman – that is, if I ever do – the way they were displayed within the poems gave me a sense of familiarity, almost as if I had already went through these experiences myself. I cannot dislike a book of which it discusses suicide and having a child.
lichenbitten's review
4.0
"O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in the tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia,
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about raising potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?
Thief!—
how did you crawl into,
crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny breasts,
the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,
the death we drank to,
the motives and then the quiet deed?
(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,
how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy
to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,
and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,
and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides
and I know at the news of your death,
a terrible taste for it, like salt.
(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,
what is your death
but an old belonging,
a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?
(O friend,
while the moon’s bad,
and the king’s gone,
and the queen’s at her wit’s end
the bar fly ought to sing!)
O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!"
-- "Sylvia's Death"
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in the tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia,
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about raising potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?
Thief!—
how did you crawl into,
crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny breasts,
the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,
the death we drank to,
the motives and then the quiet deed?
(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,
how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy
to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,
and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,
and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides
and I know at the news of your death,
a terrible taste for it, like salt.
(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,
what is your death
but an old belonging,
a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?
(O friend,
while the moon’s bad,
and the king’s gone,
and the queen’s at her wit’s end
the bar fly ought to sing!)
O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!"
-- "Sylvia's Death"
frustratedangel's review
3.0
I read this poem collection to have an idea of Sexton's work before I delve into her biography but having read the snippet of her life at the end of the book makes me feel that I would have appreciated her poems better after reading about her life first.
There is much inner working going at hand in these poems she's written, this much I could gather from her work. It wasn't surprising to know that writing poems was a therapeutic suggestion by her doctor. The themes and content all revolve around her struggles but it is much too personal for me to grasp fully.
There is much inner working going at hand in these poems she's written, this much I could gather from her work. It wasn't surprising to know that writing poems was a therapeutic suggestion by her doctor. The themes and content all revolve around her struggles but it is much too personal for me to grasp fully.
rhaegals's review
4.0
Crude. Vulgar. Raw.
Not for the /faint/ of heart ( read faint as prudish ), for Sexton tackles subjects considered as taboo (sexual assault, incest, parental abuse, substance use, etc)
Sexton’s poems are unfiltered and disordered (the latter being reflected by her use of enjambment). Albeit, I was not very fond of her use of religious imagery and Biblical allusions ( found them arbitrary and excessive mostly ... I think it’s just me )
Not for the /faint/ of heart ( read faint as prudish ), for Sexton tackles subjects considered as taboo (sexual assault, incest, parental abuse, substance use, etc)
Sexton’s poems are unfiltered and disordered (the latter being reflected by her use of enjambment). Albeit, I was not very fond of her use of religious imagery and Biblical allusions ( found them arbitrary and excessive mostly ... I think it’s just me )
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