Anne Sexton

Sexton is admired for her confessional, intimate and direct poetry.

She is known for her courage in breaking taboos and struggling with
depression.
She made the experience of being a woman a central issue in her
poetry, and though she endured criticism for bringing subjects such
as abortion, menstruation, and drug addiction into her work, her
skills surpassed the controversy created over her then, unspeakable
issues.

Anne Gray Harvey was born November 9, 1928 in Weston,

Massachusetts. She was the smallest of three sisters and was
constantly looking for attention from her parents. Her older sister
was her dads favorite and her other sister was the smart one of the
family and the only one who went to college, leaving Sexton
unattended. At the age of 17 Sexton was sent to Robert Hall, a
preparatory school for girls with the purpose of fixing her into a
proper woman. This was Sextons first experience with poetry.
Shortly after, one of her poems was published in the schools
yearbook. With disbelief, her own mother accused her of making up
that the poem was hers. Her mother could not believe Sexton had
the capacity of writing such beautiful things.

Unstable, she finished studying at Garland School in Boston where

she met Alfred Muller Sexton II. They fell in love and escaped
together to New York. They failed economically and returned to
Massachusetts where Mr. Sexton left her to work for the naval. In
1953 Sexton conceived her first child and after that fell into
depression. Time after, she began taking counseling to help her
depression and had a second child.

By 1956 Sextons condition got worse. She interned a psychiatric

hospital and attempted suicide for the first time. Dr. Martin her
psychiatrist, encouraged her to write poems as an activity to pass
time. Sexton exceled at poetry and by 1959 she had national
recognition, she had been to a series of poetry workshops, meet
other poets, won an Audience Poetry Prize, published her first book
To Bedlam and Part Way Back and attempted suicide for the second
time. Publishing a book gave Sexton the inspiration to keep creating
poetry. In 1962 she published a second book named All My Pretty
Ones. Full of success Sexton traveled to Europe but returned earlier
due to her emotional disturbance. She returned to be an English
literature teacher in her home state of Massachusetts. In 1968
Sexton became the fist woman to be awarded honorary Phi Beta
Kappa from Harvard. One year later she published a book called
Love poems and worked on a play.
In 1973 Sextons life changed drastically. She was hospitalized three
times and received a divorce from her husband the same year. She
managed to bring her final works to a conclusion with the
publishment of The Death Notebooks in 1974. That same year,
Sexton returned home to commit suicide in her garage on October
4, 1974 by inhaling carbon monoxide poisoning. The tragic end she
brought to her life was the result of several years of battling
depression.

Sources:
UTA. "Anne Sexton: A Brief Biography." The University of Texas
at Arlington - UT Arlington - UTA. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
<http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/poetry/as/bio1.html>.
James Whitlark. "Anne Sexton: A Brief Biography." EBSCO
Publishing Service Selection Page. EBSCO, 1994. Web. 14 Jan.
2012. <http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/detail?vid=4>.
Petty, Chapel Louise. "Anne Sexton." EBSCO Publishing Service
Selection Page. Ebsco, 2002. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
<http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/detail?vid=3>.
ESCO. "'I Think It Would Be Better to Be a Jew': Anne Sexton
and the Holocaust." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page.
Esco. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
<http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/detail?vid=3>.