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Anne Sexton Biography

Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry details her long battle with depression, suicidal tendencies, and various intimate details from her private life, including her relationships with her husband and children.

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Anne Sexton Quotes

My sleeping pill is white. It is a splendid pearl; it floats me out of myself, my stung skin as alien as a loose bolt of cloth.

Cloth, Loose, Pearl, Skins, Sleep, White

It is in the small things we see it. The child's first step, as awesome as an earthquake. The first time you rode a bike, wallowing up the sidewalk.

Children, Courage, Earthquakes, Small, Things, Time

There is a good look that I wear like a blood clot. I have sewn it over my left breast. I have made a vocation of it.

Blood, Clot, Good, Heart, Looks

All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children. . . . I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.

Children, Husband, Life, Married, White

Then God spoke to me and said: People say only good things about Christmas. If they want to say something bad, they whisper.

Christmas, God, Jesus, People, Said

Talk to me about sadness. I talk about it too much in my own head but I never mind others talking about it either; I occasionally feel like I tremendously need others to talk about it as well.

Head, Like, Mind, Sadness, Talking, Tremendously

I have a black look I do not like. It is a mask I try on. I migrate toward it and its frog sits on my lips and defecates.

Anger, Black, Look, Sits, Trying

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.

Beautiful, Ear, Hard, Inspirational, Life, Listen

Mood can be as important as sense.

Feelings, Important, Mood, Sense

I would sell my life to avoid the pain that begins in the crib with its bars or perhaps with your first breath when the planets drill your future into you.

Bars, Drill, Life, Pain, Perhaps, Sell

The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.

Beans, Garlic, Mushrooms, Summer, Thinking, Yellow

I tied down time with a rope but it came back. Then I put my head in a death bowl and my eyes shut up like clams. They didn't come back.

Back, Bowl, Down, Eye, Rope, Time

Fear
a motor,
pumps me around and around
until I fade slowly.

Fades, Fear, Motor, Pumps

Fee-fi-fo-fum - Now I'm borrowed. Now I'm numb.

Borrowed, Fees, Numb

the marriage twists, holds firm, a sailor's knot.

Holds, Marriage, Sailor, Twists

Now, in my middle age, about nineteen in the head I'd say, I am rowing, I am rowing.

Age, Aging, Head, Nineteen, Say

Then all this became history. Your hand found mine. Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot. Oh, my carpenter, the fingers are rebuilt. They dance with yours.

Blood, Carpenter, Clot, Found, Hands, Rebuilt

Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust would keep us calm and prove us whole at last.

Lost, Lust, Time, Waiting, Whole, Yesterday

When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.

Born, Inspirational, Know, Thing, Writing

Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.

Awareness, House, Over You, Run, Running

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