Critical Essays on Anne SextonThis volume consists of reviews and essays that trace the critical reputation of Anne Sexton, and reveal the range of attitudes and judgements expressed by critics. The new studies represent an attempt to assess the importance of women's poetry and of confessional poetry. British critic Laurence Lerner examines what American confessional poetry is and what its influence on the world of contemporary poetry has been; Paul Lacey claims that Sexton's chief motivation is the making of ritual, and that her best poems are built around rites of communion, prayer, and gift-giving; Alicia Ostriker writes on anger and polarization in women's poetry; and Joyce Carol Oates writes on self-portrait in Sexton's poetry and letters. The volume concludes with reminiscences by Kathleen Spivack, Maxine Kumin, and Diana Wood Middlebrook. ISBN 0-8161-8891-2: $38.00. |
Contents
The Hungry Sheep Look Up | 19 |
O Yellow Eye | 38 |
SelfPortrait in Poetry and Letters | 52 |
Copyright | |
12 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
45 Mercy Street American Poetry Anne Sexton Anne's artist Awful Rowing becomes Bedlam Book of Folly Boston child Christ collection Complete Poems confessional confessional poetry contemporary critics daughter dead Death Notebooks Denise Levertov Double Image dream Emily Dickinson emotional essay evil experience eyes fairy feel female feminist final girl guilt Houghton Mifflin human imagination J. D. McClatchy Jesus Papers journey kind language Linda Gray Sexton lines Live Love Poems lover madness Maxine Kumin means Mercy Street mother Nana Nana's narrative never pain poem poem's poet poet's poetic Pretty reader Reprinted with permission response Review rhyme ritual Robert Lowell role says seems sense Sexton's poems Sexton's poetry Snodgrass speaker speaks stanza story storyteller suffering Sylvia Plath symbolic themes things tion tradition Transformations truth vision voice volume W. D. Snodgrass witch woman women words writing York