Poems Inspired by Anne Sexton
#AnneSexton
Poems inspired by the American poet Anne Sexton, who was known for her confessional writing style. Here you'll find poetry using the style, themes or characters found in poems by Anne Sexton. Along with poems about Sexton herself, including praise, criticism and memorials.
Casted_Runes
Mr Karswell
Mr Karswell
Poem Published
10th Jan 2023 3:14pm
10th Jan 2023 3:14pm
Sexton
Always in black-and-white, she sits,
smoking a cigarette, one leg protruding
as if a sculptor caught motion, and fits
a chisel to a thigh. Both grave-digging
and bell-ringing make up the sexton’s life.
But wrongly called both succubus and wife.
She would have lit up Salem like a knife
revealed by moonlight in the house.
Misogynistic fantasies crowd on
the Massachusetts tomb; a mouse
dries out upon its palindrome, the sun
revolving ‘round the name RAT’S STAR.
Where need is never quite belief, come far
but...
smoking a cigarette, one leg protruding
as if a sculptor caught motion, and fits
a chisel to a thigh. Both grave-digging
and bell-ringing make up the sexton’s life.
But wrongly called both succubus and wife.
She would have lit up Salem like a knife
revealed by moonlight in the house.
Misogynistic fantasies crowd on
the Massachusetts tomb; a mouse
dries out upon its palindrome, the sun
revolving ‘round the name RAT’S STAR.
Where need is never quite belief, come far
but...
#depression
#MentalHealth
#WritingPoetry #AnneSexton
#WritingPoetry #AnneSexton
142 reads
2 Comments
PoetsRevenge
Poem Published
1st Nov 2019 1:28am
1st Nov 2019 1:28am
The Double Image (Portraits)
I made you to find me'
'It doesn't matter if there are wars,
the business of life continues
unless you're the one that gets it'
-Anne Sexton
I went around in circles writing the empty vernacular,
writing it out in reams until it stood for something.
The dead heart followed along, musing me.
Why are the words so empty?
They echo, those words, rat-tat-tat and ka-ching
as the hills of my mother's bounty became flattened.
Each faint pulse of her heart, a wind of the ribbon ink,
and sentences...
'It doesn't matter if there are wars,
the business of life continues
unless you're the one that gets it'
-Anne Sexton
I went around in circles writing the empty vernacular,
writing it out in reams until it stood for something.
The dead heart followed along, musing me.
Why are the words so empty?
They echo, those words, rat-tat-tat and ka-ching
as the hills of my mother's bounty became flattened.
Each faint pulse of her heart, a wind of the ribbon ink,
and sentences...
#mother
#death
#suicide
#cancer
#AnneSexton
518 reads
8 Comments
PoetsRevenge
Poem Published
20th Oct 2019 3:58am
20th Oct 2019 3:58am
Just Once (Living River Of Hell)
The trouble with being a woman, Skeezix,
is being a little girl in the first place'
'If this is Hell, then Hell could not be much,
neither as special or as ugly as I was told.'
-Anne Sexton
I am diagnosed dragging on a Camel,
staring at the river, full of all the selves
of detachmemt from my actual one.
They used to be me as one self when I was
fused into the wall of my mother,
before I came here to this bridge.
I am deranging like the splitting haloes
of car headlights...
is being a little girl in the first place'
'If this is Hell, then Hell could not be much,
neither as special or as ugly as I was told.'
-Anne Sexton
I am diagnosed dragging on a Camel,
staring at the river, full of all the selves
of detachmemt from my actual one.
They used to be me as one self when I was
fused into the wall of my mother,
before I came here to this bridge.
I am deranging like the splitting haloes
of car headlights...
#dark
#death
#river
#memories
#AnneSexton
699 reads
19 Comments
MaryWalker
Poem Published
17th Oct 2019 9:59am
17th Oct 2019 9:59am
[ CC ] The Milestone
In my body these days
rarely a poetic bone
to date; I feel terribly
calcified
hardened in ways by
harrowed happenings of late
yielding fewer marrowed
words per stride
Plodding onward, trodding
to what's plotted ahead---
our story's allotted 'The End'
around the bend
of this stepping stone path;
without you, somehow
the steps farther apart
seemingly steeper now
my love, my...
rarely a poetic bone
to date; I feel terribly
calcified
hardened in ways by
harrowed happenings of late
yielding fewer marrowed
words per stride
Plodding onward, trodding
to what's plotted ahead---
our story's allotted 'The End'
around the bend
of this stepping stone path;
without you, somehow
the steps farther apart
seemingly steeper now
my love, my...
#love
#BestFriend
#friendship
#death
#AnneSexton
513 reads
4 Comments
goldenmyst
Bumped 4th Sep 2019 6:20pm
4th Oct 2015 6:37pm
4th Oct 2015 6:37pm
Strangers in the Night
Strangers in the Night
I love the smell of books. I think that, even more than my love of literature, may be the reason I work in a used book store. That and because it is so quiet. I love quiet places where I find I can think more clearly. I know people who crave noise and feel lonely in places like this book store.
However, I feel right at home among the books of Pablo Neruda and Anne Sexton two of my favorite authors among the many represented in the stacks of this antiquarian book store. The books are like companions to me. I feel as though I am in the company of the...
I love the smell of books. I think that, even more than my love of literature, may be the reason I work in a used book store. That and because it is so quiet. I love quiet places where I find I can think more clearly. I know people who crave noise and feel lonely in places like this book store.
However, I feel right at home among the books of Pablo Neruda and Anne Sexton two of my favorite authors among the many represented in the stacks of this antiquarian book store. The books are like companions to me. I feel as though I am in the company of the...
#AnneSexton
1071 reads
4 Comments
PoetsRevenge
Poem Published
29th Aug 2019 2:39am
29th Aug 2019 2:39am
The Awful Rowing (Toward God)
Perhaps God is only a deep voice
heard by the deaf,
I do not know'
-Anne Sexton
Where is God, what sun, what moon
towed the misogyny
to leave me here in his blood?
The far off island of blinking starlight
winks and carries me off:
I am floating, I am rowing.
Seeking, I am always seeking;
such tedious labor to play this game.
He is receding as I push on to his
island in the sun
inhaling its fishy, sour sobriety.
My skin is removed of its endurance,
I am raw, blistered in the...
heard by the deaf,
I do not know'
-Anne Sexton
Where is God, what sun, what moon
towed the misogyny
to leave me here in his blood?
The far off island of blinking starlight
winks and carries me off:
I am floating, I am rowing.
Seeking, I am always seeking;
such tedious labor to play this game.
He is receding as I push on to his
island in the sun
inhaling its fishy, sour sobriety.
My skin is removed of its endurance,
I am raw, blistered in the...
#death
#God
#confessional #AnneSexton
#confessional #AnneSexton
825 reads
10 Comments
PoetsRevenge
Poem Published
13th Aug 2019 4:40am
13th Aug 2019 4:40am
Menstruation At Forty (Spider's Curse)
Stung to death,
an ill begotten fate,
sisters in tangled limb,
sisters in wombs' blood
rendered of yesterdays
remains still hunted.
Weaving angels
hover over the early death
trapped, entangled,
consumed in poison,
wrists bound together
praying for new life.
Son, beseeching
all I have acquired of you,
You, whom the dusky late hours have made,
You, whom I lusted for and listened for
rattling as bells toll,
clocks revealing our closeness in hour,
our embrace before ...
an ill begotten fate,
sisters in tangled limb,
sisters in wombs' blood
rendered of yesterdays
remains still hunted.
Weaving angels
hover over the early death
trapped, entangled,
consumed in poison,
wrists bound together
praying for new life.
Son, beseeching
all I have acquired of you,
You, whom the dusky late hours have made,
You, whom I lusted for and listened for
rattling as bells toll,
clocks revealing our closeness in hour,
our embrace before ...
#women
#death
#AnneSexton
650 reads
6 Comments
MaryWalker
Poem Published
5th Aug 2019 6:21pm
5th Aug 2019 6:21pm
[ CC ] Damn You, Plath
I admit to it---
falling in Love with you
my Sister in Confessional Poetry
( despite being married to Mister Sexton;
indeferent of sexual orientation )
for you hath stolen my heart
with your dark art of perusing
Death's panties for its clit's Mistress---
be it Dolores, Jane, Sally - any woman
one could meet on the street
innumerable in the talley
I'm tired, I'm beat
from fighting, no longer reeling
from overwhelming fits---
my...
falling in Love with you
my Sister in Confessional Poetry
( despite being married to Mister Sexton;
indeferent of sexual orientation )
for you hath stolen my heart
with your dark art of perusing
Death's panties for its clit's Mistress---
be it Dolores, Jane, Sally - any woman
one could meet on the street
innumerable in the talley
I'm tired, I'm beat
from fighting, no longer reeling
from overwhelming fits---
my...
#lesbian
#confessional
#SylviaPlath
#FallingInLove
#AnneSexton
606 reads
5 Comments
JohnnyBlaze
Poem Published
4th Aug 2019 12:21pm
4th Aug 2019 12:21pm
[ CC ] Life Of The Party
Sultry as hell she was
in that little black dress
worn so delicately well
given the sparse nesting
of robin's egg breasts
we were both born with
I really don't know whether
to be jealous or happy
that she went to the party
so much earlier without me
I can't help being anything but
angry
What I'd settle for
is a martini --- the dirtier ...
in that little black dress
worn so delicately well
given the sparse nesting
of robin's egg breasts
we were both born with
I really don't know whether
to be jealous or happy
that she went to the party
so much earlier without me
I can't help being anything but
angry
What I'd settle for
is a martini --- the dirtier ...
#friendship
#death
#SylviaPlath #AnneSexton
#SylviaPlath #AnneSexton
635 reads
12 Comments
Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
jade tiger
Poem Published
3rd Aug 2019 5:47pm
3rd Aug 2019 5:47pm
Witch
In the deep black unfathomable
where nothing burns of where there is no air,
in the white ashes unreadable
as others cannot see yet still they stare,
in evening’s wicked, winding stir.
A female muse like that without a care.
I have been like her.
I possess, endowed, an evil spree,
insanity, my bent of village spells
on every inhabitant and flea;
my brewing for the vermin with me dwells,
from cavern home the smell’s allure.
A female like that is a mystery.
I have been like her. ...
where nothing burns of where there is no air,
in the white ashes unreadable
as others cannot see yet still they stare,
in evening’s wicked, winding stir.
A female muse like that without a care.
I have been like her.
I possess, endowed, an evil spree,
insanity, my bent of village spells
on every inhabitant and flea;
my brewing for the vermin with me dwells,
from cavern home the smell’s allure.
A female like that is a mystery.
I have been like her. ...
#women
#death
#LifeStruggles
#witches
#AnneSexton
856 reads
17 Comments
Heaven_sent_Kathy
Poem Published
2nd Aug 2019 00:54am
2nd Aug 2019 00:54am
Girlfriends
( after Anne Sexton )
‘Death’, sounds almost tender
and childlike when I say the name,
rhyming as it does with ‘breath’,
A life force unlike, lesser the end,
when a door is pried open
with a common kitchen utensil.
I didn’t pay attention and failed,
leaving me to salvage
Plath’s words before her last,
When we’d speak of it many times,
as fireflies, like girlfriends,
sending up smoke rings to be the first.
Now I jealously guard the rite
while I still have life and a history,
and can...
‘Death’, sounds almost tender
and childlike when I say the name,
rhyming as it does with ‘breath’,
A life force unlike, lesser the end,
when a door is pried open
with a common kitchen utensil.
I didn’t pay attention and failed,
leaving me to salvage
Plath’s words before her last,
When we’d speak of it many times,
as fireflies, like girlfriends,
sending up smoke rings to be the first.
Now I jealously guard the rite
while I still have life and a history,
and can...
#suicide
#fate
#SylviaPlath #AnneSexton
#SylviaPlath #AnneSexton
775 reads
5 Comments
thepositivelydark
Poem Published
8th Dec 2016 10:29am
8th Dec 2016 10:29am
For Them, Who Cannot Keep Me Any Longer
She is all there.
...
She is, in fact, exquisite.
...
Let's face it, I have been momentary,
A luxury.
...
She is solid.
As for me, I am watercolor.
I wash off.
- "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," Anne Sexton
You have such a way with words, honey.
Such a way with words.
They billow out of your mouth,
Stained with the color of her lips.
I see it.
I hear her say your prayers every night.
And how they all fall into
Pages of binding
Signed with your names.
...
...
She is, in fact, exquisite.
...
Let's face it, I have been momentary,
A luxury.
...
She is solid.
As for me, I am watercolor.
I wash off.
- "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," Anne Sexton
You have such a way with words, honey.
Such a way with words.
They billow out of your mouth,
Stained with the color of her lips.
I see it.
I hear her say your prayers every night.
And how they all fall into
Pages of binding
Signed with your names.
...
#AnneSexton
819 reads
7 Comments
DU Poetry : Poems Inspired by Anne Sexton
#AnneSexton is curated by Ahavati.
