“Live or die, but don't poison everything.” It's a direct, almost flippant, epigraph to “ Live,” the final poem in Anne Sexton's third book of poetry.
Table of contents
Even then I have nothing against life. I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun. But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic. In this way, heavy and thoughtful, warmer than oil or water, I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole. I did not think of my body at needle point. Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body. Still-born, they don't always die, but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet that even children would look on and smile. To thrust all that life under your tongue! Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say, and yet she waits for me, year after year, to so delicately undo an old wound, to empty my breath from its bad prison. Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet, raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon, leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss, leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love, whatever it was, an infection.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarf Jan 12, Kirsty rated it liked it Shelves: Live or Die is Anne Sexton's fourth collection of poetry. I'd not read any of her work before, but had a feeling that I would love it. There were some poems here which I didn't much like, I must admit, but others far made up for them. There are so many interesting ideas and themes at play throughout, and her tribute to Sylvia Plath was quite beautiful. The downside for me was that there was too much religious imagery included for my personal liking. I found just one.
I look for uncomplicated hymns but love has none. Mar 18, Karyn rated it it was amazing. Painfully sensitive, horribly depressing, joyful and heart-wrenching I read this a lot as a teen. Feb 11, Miguel Vega rated it really liked it Shelves: Her struggles with choosing to live or die is fascinating and I love how she chose life at the end. Tragic how death won out for her through herself in the end. Jun 16, Liam rated it liked it Shelves: I liked these, many are clear descriptions of losing sanity, willpower, feeling, someone But I prefer her 'Love Poems', because I get a kick out of Sexton's explicit and strong yearning in her poems, and I find this was more captivating in her poems for love than those for death.
Dec 30, Gloria Sun rated it it was amazing. This was so cool because Sexton was an author living in Boston, so I knew all these places she was mentioning. Anyway, these poems were highly autobiographical and I think she was contemplating suicide and they felt really relevant. While working on this volume her friend Sylvia Plath died and some other people and I feel like I could understand her. All these poems just went by so quickly, but the last one was titled "Live" and it was so affirmative.
Soy experta en hacer el viaje invicta y ahora dicen que soy una adicta. Jan 07, Shrobona shafique dipti added it. Dec 29, Chelsea rated it really liked it Shelves: View all 5 comments. Mar 08, Russel rated it really liked it. I like her nursery rhymes. Nov 21, Wells T. In "Live or Die" Sexton marries Christian ceremony with the psychiatric worship of chemical self help.
The result is a tragic anthem of communion, uncertain worship and unknowing provenance. Oct 17, Monica rated it really liked it Shelves: I opened my copy to find her NYT obit.
Wanting to Die
Such a beautiful, gifted, young woman. Anne Sexton se muestra enfadada: Es bien significativo que en todo el poema la muerte aparece caracterizada como un hombre. En el imaginario de la Sexton, la muerte siempre es un hombre cuando se produce de muerte natural, pero una mujer en el suicidio. Sin embargo, en el caso de Sylvia Plath, Sexton rompe con esta norma: Una gran poeta, innovadora y arriesgada, con venas de Martini y mala baba. Apr 23, Dave rated it it was amazing.
However, I felt that I needed to read these poems more closely and then doing so increased my appreciation. One of Sexton's talents that I missed here is her ability to arrange poems in an order that illuminates the following poems, she does that best in Transformations. Since the poems are arranged in chronological order, that talent isn't used in Live or Die. Live or Die feels a little false, the poems were not precisely written in order they appear - based on Middlebrook's biography.
The book ends with Live - given Sexton's suicide - that's feels a little fake too. She never gave up talking about suicide and was hospitalized for over two weeks in the middle of the Live or Die period. The pacing of the chronological order is off too - because from May 64 to the summer of 65 she didn't write much. She went on a new drug, Thorazine, which hampered creativity in the summer of 64 and spent a lot of time working on a play.
All that was why originally I thought All My Pretty Ones was better, plus AMPO is more about the death of her parents, the relationship with her psychiatrist, and her illicit romance with James Wright which is more interesting to me than suicide. However, the poems that are in the collection are really good: Sexton started writing purely from what she called the depth of her unconscious in this period. Overall they are stronger than what is in AMPO. Sylvia's Death is illuminating because before Plath's suicide, Sexton was the stronger poet. Perhaps it is because of the Bell Jar that Plath seems to be the larger figure now.
Reading Middlebrook's biography along side the poems in this period is further illuminating. Apr 03, Anna-Catherine Kueng rated it it was amazing. I am very particular about poetry and if there are any hints of cliche writing, I quickly stop reading the collection.
Anne Sexton's poems had none of those. Every poem was unique, absurd, and intriguing. The themes of 'Live or Die' are death obviously , sex, femininity, and childbirth. My favorite poem was "Your Face On The Dog's Neck," but all of the ones addressed to daughters were phenomenal, as well. There was even a poem reflecting on the suicide of Sylvia Plath, so it was cool to see that connection. All in all, I would definitely love to have my own copy of 'Live or Die. I look forward to reading more of Sexton's works. Feb 01, Caroline M rated it liked it Shelves: Although to be fair the fixation on death is super relatable, thanks Sexton.
Anyway, in terms of confessional poetry, I enjoyed Ariel a lot more. Not a fan of excessive parallelism or rhyming in poetry, so I guess it's more of a personal thing. Feb 20, Drew rated it it was amazing Shelves: This collection has grown on me over the years, its contents cohering as the distillation of four years in a troubled life, with Anne Sexton's unsweetened psychic excavations periodically interrupted by the loss of a friend "Sylvia's Death" , a yearly holiday "Christmas Eve" or even the injury experienced by a child "Pain for a Daughter". There's a constant rigor to the digging here which may explain why this queen of the confession so often strikes gold.
Apr 30, Steve rated it really liked it Shelves: An emotionally heavy collection of poetry that captures the uncertainty and despair of depression. These poems do a great job of conveying the feelings of the author and the life events and inner conflicts she is writing about. Full of emotion and reflecting the influences in the authors life, her family, her religion, her children, I can see how this work helped the author work through her personal challenges.
I would rate this book 3.
Live or Die | poetry by Sexton | leondumoulin.nl
Sometimes the images are sharp, but the context is still the jagged psychological loathing—a kind of writing I especially dislike, and not in this case redeemed by good enough writing. I quit not quite halfway. I know that these were published and intended for people to experience for themselves aside from whatever the author went through to create them, but I still can't help feeling a little guilty for enjoying so much a product of Ms.
Sexton's emotions and tribulations. These were raw and heartbreaking poems and I'm glad to have come across them. Jun 22, Angie rated it it was amazing Shelves: I struggled with what rating to give this book. It's stark and beautiful.
Navigation menu
It's sad and often painful. It's tragic and real. In the end, I decided that any discomfort I might have felt with some of her poems was a good thing. She succeeded in making me feel something, and that kind of emotional resonance is what I'm looking for in poetry. The Knife Words are a knife, that can cure you or cut you.
- Quick Links - Poets.org.
- Special Education in Latin America: Experiences and Issues.
- Laccueil : un métier: Application au tourisme et à lhôtellerie (Pratiques dentreprises) (French Edit.
- The Price of Love: including an original DCI Banks novella!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit! By nature vile, ennoble but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn, Pass on — it honors none you wish to mourn.
- follow poets.org!
- The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History (Contemporary Worlds).
- follow poets.org.
- Famous Poems;
- See a Problem?.
God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood That fell upon the earth. It, groaning thing, Turned black and sank. Then from the far caverns Of dead sins Came monsters, livid with desire. They fought, Wrangled over the world, A morsel. Before us great Death stands Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
The cloud, the stillness that must part The darling of my life from me; And then to thank God from my heart, To thank Him well and fervently; Although I knew that we had lost The hope and glory of our life; And now, benighted, tempest-tossed, Must bear alone the weary strife.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Yeats Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead: