Two poems
by Anne Sexton (American poet, 1928-1974)
"Like Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, W. D. Snodgrass (who exerted
a great influence on her work), and other 'confessional' poets, Sexton offers
the reader an intimate view of the emotional anguish that characterized
her life. She made the experience of being a woman a central issue in her
poetry, and though she endured criticism for bringing subjects such as menstruation,
abortion, and drug addiction into her work, her skill as a poet transcended
the controversy over her subject matter."
Menstruation at Forty
(from Live or Die [1966], which won the Pulitzer Prize)
I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
I feel the November
of the body as well as of the calendar.
In two days it will be my birthday
and as always the earth is done with its harvest.
This time I hunt for death,
the night I lean toward,
the night I want.
Well then"
speak of it!
I was in the womb all along.
I was thinking of a son . . .
You! The never acquired,
the never seeded or unfastened,
you of the genitals I feared,
the stalk and the puppy's breath.
Will I give you my eyes or his?
Will you be the David or the Susan?
(Those two names I picked and listened for.)
Can you be the man your fathers are"
the leg muscles from Michaelangelo,
hands from Yugoslavia,
somewhere the peasant, Slavic and determined,
somewhere the survivor, bulging with life"
and could it still be possible,
all this with Susan's eyes?
All this without you"
two days gone in blood.
I myself will die without baptism,
a third daughter they didn't bother.
My death will come on my name day.
What's wrong with the name day?
It's only an angel of the sun.
Woman,
weaving a web over your own,
a thin and tangled poison.
Scorpio,
bad spider"
die!
My death from the wrists,
two name tags,
blood worn like a corsage
to bloom
one on the left and one on the right"
It's a warm room,
the place of blood.
Leave the door open on its hinges!
Two days for your death
and two days until mine.
Love! That red disease"
year after year, David, you would make me wild!
David! Susan! David! David!
full and disheveled, hissing into the night
never growing old,
waiting always on the back porch . . .
year after year,
my carrot, my cabbage,
I would have possessed you before all women,
calling your name,
calling you mine.
In Celebration of My Uterus
(from Love Poems [1969])
Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you are immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a school girl.
You are not torn.
Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.
Hello spirit. Hello, cup.
Fasten, cover. Cover that does contain.
Hello to the soil of the fields.
Welcome, roots.
Each cell has a life.
There is enough here to please a nation.
It is enough that the populace owns these goods.
Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,
"It is good this year that we may plant again
and think forward to the harvest.
A blight had been forecast and has been cast out."
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia,
one is shifting pots on a stove in Egypt,
one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,
one is dying but remembering a breakfast,
one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,
one is wiping the ass of her child,
one is staring out the window of a train
in the middle of Wyoming and one is
anywhere and some are everywhere and all
seem to be singing, although some can not
sing a note.
Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
let me carry a ten-foot scarf,
let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,
let me carry bowls for the offering
(if that is my part).
Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,
let me examine the angular distance of meteors,
let me suck on the stems of flowers
(if that is my part).
Let me make certain tribal figures
(if that is my part).
For this thing the body needs
let me sing
for the supper,
for the kissing,
for the correct
yes.
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