Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.
This stanza describes the complicated relationship we have with our closest loved ones. Though her father was an abusive drunkard whom she despised, it is in his death that Sexton forgives him. The death of her father--and his permanent absence--allowed Sexton to find the strength to forgive him for all his horrible wrongdoings. This stanza is particularly important to this poem, however, because it suggests that Sexton was only able to forgive her father because of his death. She specifically points out that she has outlived her father--which is suggestive of the intense bitterness and resentment Sexton still holds towards him. This poem reminds us that death--particularly the death of an estranged family member--is a fickle thing, one that divides our hearts in strange ways.
[W]e drip into the soup
and drown
in the worry festering inside us,
lest our children
go so fast
they go.
In this stanza, Sexton aims to point out the unconditional and automatic guilt/worry that mothers feel for their children. She metaphorically describes how mothers drown in the soup of their own guilt and are consumed by these overwhelming feelings. Sexton describes this worry as a parasite, an invader that takes up home inside a mother and festers until it consumes her entirely. She sorrowfully points out that mothers are often so consumed by this worry and guilt that their children will grow up and leave that they often miss the growing up phases. By the time they’ve removed themselves from this guilt, their children have grown and are on their way to leave. In this ironic stanza, Sexton urges mothers to bury their worry and instead focus on the present; to savor every moment spent with their children.
Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.
In this stanza, Sexton preaches about the dangers of intellect. She urges her readers to be wary of the power of intellect, as it can make people boastful. Sexton suggests that intellect is so knowledgeable that it can, in fact, be detrimental. So often, we become so desperate to showcase our impressive intellect that we are blinded by the subtler, more nuanced aspects of life. The more we know, the more likely we are to want to show off that knowledge--usually at somebody’s expense. Intellect can often block the desires of our heart/emotions and overtake these more genuine urges. In short, Sexton urges her readers to understand that intellect is powerfully dangerous, due to its controlling and boastful nature.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.
This short stanza from Sexton’s poem about the after effects of Auschwitz and the Nazi occupation of Germany is incredibly powerful in its simplicity. She describes the Nazis as the physical embodiment of death and evil. Through them, death looks on at the carnage and destruction with an unconcerned eye. So unconcerned is death that it has the time and care to pick casually at the dirt under its fingernails. This stanza is meant to represent the horrifically powerful way death infiltrated the consciousness of Nazis in 1940s Germany. Her poem exemplifies a disgusted awe at the fact that so many citizens--seemingly average people--committed such horrible atrocities with such an unabashed lack of care. This stanza therefore represents the casual nature with which hundreds of thousands of Nazis acted as death and casually destroyed millions of lives.
I lie as still as a bar of iron.
You can stick a needle
through my kneecap and I won't flinch.
I'm all shot up with Novocain.
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
This poem is a metaphorical depiction of Anne Sexton’s own experiences with sexual abuse at the hands of her father. In this stanza, Anne likens herself to Sleeping Beauty’s deathly-still sleep. Each night, before her father would come to abuse her, Sexton would lay still in bed, hoping that her father’s advances could be warded off for the night. In this stanza, she compares her stillness and inability to move to Briar Rose’s deep sleep. Sexton’s entire body would be so tense and so still that a needle through her kneecap would hardly be bothersome. She likens the numbing experience to being “all shot up with Novocain.” For Sexton, the assaults seemed unavoidable. The effect of the assaults upon her were similar to that of Novocain; she was unable to move, unable to escape, unable to think. Each assault was more and more numbing. Finally, she likens herself and her broken conscious to an inescapable trance. Repeated assaults at her father’s hand degraded Sexton to the point that she may as well have been in a trance; far away and incapable of stopping the horrific attacks.
I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.
This poem and stanza focus heavily on the influence of words. In this stanza, Sexton is metaphorically representing her readers as a tree that someone has pasted leaves onto. In other words, she’s suggesting that humans are often sculpted by others, by these “pasted-on” attributes. Everyday we are bombarded with promotions, advertisements, and opinions. These bombardments eventually stick onto us and shape our beliefs, our ideals, and feelings of self-worth. As Sexton points out, however, soon her readers will root themselves and the “real green thing” will start blossoming. This is in reference the freedom and independence that most humans eventually attain. Despite societal expectations or suggestions, humans preserve and manage to sift through the “pasted-on” attributes to discover who we really are and what we really want.
Death’s a sad bone; bruised, you’d say,
and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.
In this stanza, Sexton is referring to death and to her suicide attempts. She paints death as a sorrowful character, one she knows well. This stanza describes Sexton’s complicated relationship with death and suicide. She personifies death as something that waits for her each year to undo all the harm that has been done. In this way, this stanza almost describes suicide/death as a release from past trauma and an opportunity to heal wounds (physical or otherwise). This passage exemplifies Sexton’s relationship with death through suicide and the complicated way in which suicide is both a beginning and an end.
Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.
In this stanza, Sexton declares that she has attempted suicide twice. The enemy and evil she describes here likely refers to her own thoughts of self-loathing and hate. In this way, the enemy--the thoughts, emotions, feelings--invade her body and possess her soul. This stanza personifies Sexton’s experiences with suicide and serves as a metaphorical explanation for why she choose to attempt suicide. To her, the enemy/evil quite literally invaded her and overtook her being. Her description of this enemy as craft and magic is very telling, as it indicates an otherworldly element; something that is out of her own control.
