Anne Sexton

[PrinceMyshkin]

She's trying to skip herself
like a wrong-sided pebble
across the wide water,
she's taut
on her mind's thin edge,
slicing,
and calling on everyone to save her.


What did she do
until she discovered poetry
which, she said, would save her
(it didn't) or before she wrote letters
all day, her hand held out in front of her?


Poetry? It's a shirt that has to be turned
and turned again, a hand
flung hard as you can
away from the heart. She stands
at the shore of white sound, surveying the waves,


but the pebble skips back on itself,
and the castaway hand
strikes back, twice as fast,
at the heart, that unskippable stone.






J. Newman Sudden Proclamations copyright 1992

[firefangled]

She's trying to skip herself
like a wrong-sided pebble
across the wide water,
she's taut
on her mind's thin edge,
slicing,
and calling on everyone to save her.


What did she do
until she discovered poetry
which, she said, would save her
(it didn't) or before she wrote letters
all day, her hand held out in front of her?


Poetry? It's a shirt that has to be turned
and turned again, a hand
flung hard as you can
away from the heart. She stands
at the shore of white sound, surveying the waves,


but the pebble skips back on itself,
and the castaway hand
strikes back, twice as fast,
at the heart, that unskippable stone.






J. Newman Sudden Proclamations copyright 1992

As I've said before, Sexton is one of my 10 favorite poets and this is an apt description of Anne Sexton and her confessions. Very well written and what a metaphor!

[ampoule]

Oh Anne. You captured her well.

[Xillus_Xavier]

It's been a long time since I've read any of Sexton's work but I agree with the other poster that you've done a great job with this poem.