Fuck Yeah Anne Sexton

psychotherapy: Description: In 1956, Anne Sexton was admitted...

suedehead666 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:56:35 -0400

Description:

In 1956, Anne Sexton was admitted into a mental hospital for post-partum depression, where she met Dr. Martin Orne, a young psychiatrist who treated her for the next eight years. In that time Sexton would blossom into a world-famous poet, best known for her “confessional” poems dealing with personal subjects not often represented in poetry at that time: mental illness, depression, suicide, sex, abortion, women’s bodies, and the ordinary lives of mothers and housewives. Orne audiotaped the last three years of her therapy to facilitate her ability to remember their sessions. The final six months of these tapes are the focus of this book.

In An Accident of Hope, Dawn Skorczewski links the content of the therapy with poetry excerpts, offering a rare perspective on the artist’s experience and creative process. We can see Sexton attempting to make sense of her life and therapy and to sustain her confidence as a major poet, while struggling with the impending loss of Orne, who was moving elsewhere. Skorczewski’s study provides an intimate, in-depth view of the therapy of a psychologically tortured yet immensely creative woman, during a period of emerging feminism and cultural change. Tracing the mutual development of the poet and the therapist during their years together, the author explores the tension between the classical therapeutic setting as practiced in the early 1960s and contemporary relational and developmental concepts in psychoanalysis, just then beginning to emerge.

An Accident of Hope also raises broader questions about the nature of healing in psychotherapy. The poet and therapist we encounter in these sessions present complex and conflicted images of the therapeutic and creative process. Orne, equal parts honesty and hesitancy, works to bolster Sexton’s self-image and maintain that she is more than the sum of her poetry. Sexton, working against a tendency to hide from her most painful feelings, valiantly pushes to tell the truth in therapy, while her poems invite the readers to see another side of the story.

Just as Orne kept the audiotapes so that one day they might help others who suffer, An Accident of Hope tells the story of a therapy but moves beyond it. By offering a glimpse into the past, the present is open for reappraisal, both of Sexton herself and the legacy of psychoanalytic treatment.

"There they are drooping over the breakfast plates, angel-like, folding in their sad wing, animal..."

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:09:10 -0400

“There they are
drooping over the breakfast plates,
angel-like,
folding in their sad wing,
animal sad,
and only the night before
there they were
playing the banjo.
Once more the day’s light comes
with its immense sun,
its mother trucks,
its engines of amputation.
Whereas last night
the cock knew its way home,
as stiff as a hammer,
battering in with all
its awful power.
That theater.
Today it is tender,
a small bird,
as soft as a baby’s hand.
She is the house.
He is the steeple.
When they fuck they are God.
When they break away they are God.
When they snore they are God.
In the morning they butter the toast.
They don’t say much.
They are still God.
All the cocks of the world are God,
blooming, blooming, blooming
into the sweet blood of woman.”

- The Fury of Cocks
Anne Sexton (via monarchfly)

The only people for me are the mad ones...: Mr. Mine by Anne Sexton

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:08:31 -0400

The only people for me are the mad ones...: Mr. Mine by Anne Sexton:

amandaat:

Notice how he has numbered the blue veins
in my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles.
Now he goes left. Now he goes right.
He is building a city, a city of flesh.
He’s an industrialist. He has starved in cellars
and, ladies and gentlemen, he’s been broken by iron,
by the blood, by the metal,…

dirtyteeth: December 18th Anne Sexton For Buffalo

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:08:24 -0400

dirtyteeth:

December 18th

Anne Sexton

For Buffalo

Photo

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:08:16 -0400

"Hai detto che la rabbia sarebbe tornata proprio come l’amore Ho una sembianza nera che non mi..."

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:06:26 -0400

“

Hai detto che la rabbia sarebbe tornata
proprio come l’amore

Ho una sembianza nera che non
mi piace. È una maschera, me la provo.
Migro verso lei e la sua rana
s’accovaccia sulle mie labbra e defeca.
È una vecchia, è anche povera.
Ho provato a tenerla a dieta.
Non le dò l’estrema unzione.

C’è un bell’aspetto che indosso
come un grumo di sangue.
Me lo sono cucito sul seno sinistro.
Ne ho fatto una vocazione.
La lussuria si è piantata in esso
e io ho accostato te e il tuo
bambino allo sbocco del latte.

Oh la nerezza è assassina
e il colmo del latte trabocca
e tutto il meccanismo mi funziona
ed io ti bacerò quando
avrò fatto a pezzetti un’altra dozzina di uomini
e tu morirai un po’,
ancora, ancora.

”

- Anne Sexton, ANCORA, ANCORA, ANCORA (via dissolvenza)

amol iz geven: "Rapunzel" by Anne Sexton

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:06:20 -0400

amol iz geven: "Rapunzel" by Anne Sexton:

but-for-the-grace:

A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
The mentor
and the student
feed off each other.
Many a girl
had an old aunt
who locked her in the study
to keep the boys away.
They would play rummy
or lie on the couch
and touch and touch.
Old breast against young breast…

…

furyofsunsets: You were so ahead of your time

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:06:09 -0400

furyofsunsets:

You were so ahead of your time

"You always read about it: the plumber with the twelve children who wins the Irish Sweepstakes. From..."

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:06:02 -0400

“

You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son’s heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother’s grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That’s the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince’s ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn’t
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she’d better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler’s wax
and Cinderella’s gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don’t heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

”

- Anne Sexton, Cinderella (via brieana90)

sissysuicide: I find it serendipitous that I found these two...

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:45 -0400

sissysuicide:

I find it serendipitous that I found these two books at the same time in one of the many cabinets at home. One is the original Grimm’s Tales, while the other is Anne Sexton’s reimagining of these stories. I find Kurt Vonnegut’s introduction to Sexton’s book apt, too, for both collections:

“She domesticates my terror, examines it and describes it, teaches it some tricks which will amuse me, then lets it gallop wild in my forest once more.”

yet another poet who inspired a musician.

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:37 -0400

thewarmestchord:

st. vincent’s “save me from what i want” is basically anne sexton’s “for my lover, returning to his wife”.

FYEAHCONNECTIONSSSS!

Photo

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:30 -0400

Photo

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:20 -0400

stop lookin' at my charisma.: After Auschwitz--Anne Sexton

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:11 -0400

stop lookin' at my charisma.: After Auschwitz--Anne Sexton:

raulesparza:

Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8: 00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.

Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I…

"Listen. We must all stop dying in the little ways, in the craters of hate, in the potholes of..."

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:03:05 -0400

“Listen.
We must all stop dying in the little ways,
in the craters of hate,
in the potholes of indifference -
a murder in the temple.
The place I live in
is a kind of maze
and I keep seeking
the exit or the home.
Yes if I could listen
to the bulldog courage of those children
and turn inward into the plague of my soul
with more eyes than the stars
I could melt the darkness -
as suddenly as that time
when an awful headache goes away
or someone puts out the fire -
and stop the darkness and its amputations
and find the real McCoy
in the private holiness
of my hand.”

- Anne Sexton - The Children (via acorda)

"Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins."

suedehead666 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:02:55 -0400

“Only my books anoint me,
and a few friends,
those who reach into my veins.”

- Anne Sexton (via mnemosyneindust)

Photo

suedehead666 — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:14:28 -0400

Screen shot from flavorwire.com

suedehead666 — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:10:00 -0400

Screen shot from flavorwire.com

Photo

suedehead666 — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:05:11 -0400

thestonestomach: Anne Sexton January 24th

suedehead666 — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:03:57 -0400

thestonestomach:

Anne Sexton
January 24th