Anne Sexton: a Self Portrait in Letters

Houghton Mifflin, 1977. 1ST. SOFTCOVER. GOOD. 2ND. pp. 476. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co (January 1, 1979) Language: English ISBN-10: 0395277639 ISBN-13: 978-0395277638 Item Weight: 1.3 pounds. While confessional poet Anne Sexton included details of her life and battle with mental illness in her published work, her letters to family, friends, and fellow poets provide an even more intimate glimpse into her private world. Selected from thousands of letters and edited by Linda Gray Sexton, the poet's daughter, and Lois Ames, one of her closest friends, this collection exposes Sexton's inner life from her boarding school days through her years of growing fame and ultimately to the months leading up to her suicide. Correspondence with writers like W. D. Snodgrass, Robert Lowell, and May Swenson reveals Sexton's growing confidence in her identity as a poet as she discusses her craft, Publications, and teaching appointments. Her private letters chart her marriage to Alfred Kayo Sexton, from the giddy excitement following their elopement to their eventual divorce; her grief over the death of her parents; her great love for her daughters balanced with her frustration with the endless tasks of being a housewife; and her persistent struggle with depression. Going beyond the angst and neuroses of her poetry, these letters portray the full complexities of the woman behind the art: passionate, anguished, ambitious, and yearning for connection.