Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Her Kind: Anne Sexton

Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall Season 2 Episode 9

Join the thirsty queens for a gin & Sextonic, in this tribute to the iconic work of Anne Sexton.

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Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


NOTES:

Click here for a pdf from the Poetry Society that includes a folio of essays about Sexton's life and work by David Trinidad, Lois Ames, and Maggie Nelson. (Originally published in Crossroads, fall 2001.)

Trinidad talks about Anne Sexton on the podcast here.

And, lastly, we'd be remiss if we did not link to this dishy, well-researched article--again by the fabulous David Trinidad--about the palace intrigue behind Sexton's winning the Pulitzer for Live or Die.

Want to read more about Sexton, faith, and love? Your wait is over. 

Curious about Anne Sexton's houses? Click here! 

Here's an hour of Sexton reading some of her most iconic poems. 

Anne Sexton gave her last public reading at Goucher College in October 1974, three days before she completed suicide. You can find the reading here.

Here are links to some of the poems we mention:

"The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator"

"Menstruation at Forty"

"Her Kind"

"Sylvia's Death"

"The Fury of Cocks"

"Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women"