Chaotic, theatrical, and exuberant, Anne Sexton's letters chart the peaks and valleys of her turbulent career as a writer: they also give some insight into her relationships with her peers and, more interestingly, her ambivalence towards acquiring a level of fame unprecedented for a poet.

It's difficult to give this book a rating because I couldn't finish reading it!! I tried my utmost and even passed the halfway mark, but her words and her emotions stayed with me and drained me. In some of the letters you really get to know her as a happy person. Her relationship with the monk, for example, can only be said to have been a good one. But all her letters have a desperation about them that you just want to meet her in person and tell her that all will be fine. Take her time in Europ...

I had this sitting on four stars because I just didn't feel as if I loved it but when reading it, I couldn't put it down. I so rarely find that in books these days; I always feel as if I am forcing myself to plod through them. So really, I'd rate this 4.5. I think maybe I expected a little bit more, I thought her letters might've been more interesting? I don't know what it was, maybe I was anticipating more diary-like revelations but she was quite restrained, particularly towards the end. I mean...

The life of woman in letters, a woman who knew full well that these letters would be documented, reflecting a life of ups and downs -- starting with a promising youth told in that sort of breathless WWII-era schoolgirl prose (think Sissy Spacek in Badlands), on through the ups and downs of raising children, becoming a poet (and seemingly not really caring that much about it) bouts of mental illness, close friendships, on to the down-down-down of her later years, when you feel like she's this com...

My review: https://theblankgarden.wordpress.com/...

Anne Sexton – A Self-Portrait in Letters… As you say, I do act aggressive. I think the trouble is that my mind, my thinking mind, is aggressive. I am a machine of ideas. I adore (in a funny way) to think. I mean in a class like that I am very stimulated . . . but in fact, I do not mean to really be there after I have spoken . . . I often think of your analysis. I would like speaking, but not being there. It would be like your “Red Studio.” And that turns us back to figuring YOU out. I like figu

I had a severe love/hate relationship with this book. I was determined to get through it, but prolonged attempts at reading it would usually result in my throwing the book across the room. Sexton is a tremendous poet, but this collection of her letters brought her lesser qualities into plain view. Normally that's one of the things I appreciate about letter/journal collections, but in this case it worked against my opinion of her.

I feel a little as if i'm going to throw up but I don't think i'm going to be able get rid of this book from my life anytime soon - this is not usually the case. I went into this book not really knowing who she was as a poet or person but it kind of became clear to me kind of a weird transformation from glee to disgust when I found out that she had sexually abused her daughter. There is a weird lapse and gal to fill here - people call it the 'Anne Sexton Effect' - the molestation of her daughter...

I want to give this at least four stars, because it was a fascinating read, but the fact that it's edited and put together by her daughter makes me feel somewhat dubious. It's not a rose-colored portrait, but it's the portrait of a daughter. Totally recommended reading though for anyone who likes auto-biographies or Anne Sexton or both.

This is an interesting read, but if you are anything like me, you have to take a break from it every now and then or you will feel like you are going a little bit crazy yourself. It is a very intense trip throught the mind of a brilliant albeit very mental unstable woman.

I give this book four stars because I honestly do not like Anne Sexton as a person - or as a poet really. I was very curious about her so I read Anne Sexton: A Biography and found that I didn't care for her as a person. I then read Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton and found that I really disliked her (it could be I'm biased because my own mother was mentally ill ...). So ... having said this, why did I feel the need to read her letters?? I LOVE r...

I remember this being very good, but I need to read it again now that I'm older.I'm sure the difference in reading this book at 33 with half grown children & half a postsecondary education & 45 with a career & an empty nest is a much greater span of life than just 12 years.I'll likely be really reading it for the first time.

"The trouble with everyone just up and dying like that is that there are not faces left to throw your emotions at: love or hate. What do you do with the emotion? Is still there, though they are gone?!?!?!"

These poems really shook me. What an original, solid piece of writing! I wish Anne didn't take her life and continued writing. The world lost a big poet when she departed.

Was enjoying this so much until I did some reading on Anne Sexton and found out some terrible stuff. Don’t think I can keep reading and enjoying very personal stuff after what I learned.

It's a hard read and a slow read, but also a good one. First bunch of letters is youthful, very recognisable in a way of trying to "happen to the world", as Anne later writes in one of her last letters to her daughter Linda. All of them are great in being totally unapologetic - not in the words, but in personality. There's much chaos, volcanoes without trying to lessen, tune down, or narrow anythingYou also have to admire her negotiation skills, boy, she needed no "lean in". To get what she want...

I first heard about Anne Sexton in one of my American literature classes in college, when we studied some of her works. Even though I was interested in a few of her poems at the time, I was quick to put her (and her writing) out of my mind. It wasn't until a few years later that I rediscovered Anne at the library where I work. I happened to see a book called "Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters" on the sale shelf. Curious, I flipped through some of the pages and started reading fragments of

I started this book a while ago and find myself picking it up from time to time. it's more revealing than I expected. her letters are manic, self absorbed - ups and downs of mood.As I recall, Plath's letters were sterile, writing about the craft as if it were a self-negating chore of achievement. Nin wrote about living, loving, sex - how to become a writer by embracing life and Paris.I'm having difficulty getting into the Sexton book because of her focus on herself and the way her mental state i...

I read most of the book, but can't bring myself to rate it. I had no previous knowledge of Anne Sexton's work, and must admit that I don't have the "poetry gene". I appreciate poetic language in the form of a well stated idea, I enjoy many song lyrics, but there is something about poetry that I just don't get. Anne Sexton got it, and her letters reveal a woman who rabidly pursued her art and actively sought to better her words in poetry. I deeply admire that quality in anyone, and fervently wish...

A collection of letters written by Anne Sexton, edited and annotated by her eldest daughter, Linda, and her closest living friend, the poet Maxine Kumin, illustrated with several photographs. While Sexton's poems are often tangled and mysteriously symbolic, her letters are often exuberant, unabashedly unfiltered, unedited, and wildly passionate. She tends toward words in all capitals, long strings of exclamation points and question marks, and ellipses. A refreshingly honest, often funny, and ver...

What can I say, I fell in love with Sexton's work at sixteen. As a young poet, she was one of the first to inspire me...with her unruly and unapologetic style. With her poetry, she left the door open to her soul, which I thought was very brave and "awe-striking". She is the queen of confessionalism...and this book of her letters tells her story better than any autobiography ever has...in my opinion. A must-read for Sexton fans!

Anne Sexton was a crazy, brilliant, brash poet. She was also a suburban Boston housewife. I loved how she accepted the conventional (in some measure) in her home life and still created a type of poetry that hadn't existed before. Even more remarkable, she did this almost entirely on her own--without a college degree or much of a writing community of any kind. She just started writing in her kitchen in her spare time.

It was an ever-present memory, unlike any journals or letters that I've read from authors who have unfortunately ended their own lives. In all those other ones, there's always a glimmer of hope that in that moment, someone could have done something and changed it all drastically. But reading this, one gets the feeling that Anne Sexton was born with a block cement tied to her feet, pulling her steadily down throughout her life.

The more I appreciate myself, the less I have to pretend that I don't love Anne Sexton(being a teenage girl is hard because you're not listened to or taken seriously - especially if you read Sexton and Plath. I had to pretend to love Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, even when I didn't/prematurely - just to feel like I had more of a chance of being listened to.)

I'm not sure I'd have wanted to know Anne Sexton personally, but it was wonderful to get this personal glimpse of her private self as presented to friends, family, and colleagues. Charm and craziness co-exist here, as well as intelligence and a passion for her art.

Really, really tough to rate this kind of book. I mean, it's someone's personal letters. I do appreciate that someone saw fit to publish them - they're insightful and help flesh out the woman/human behind the poems.

Sexton's writings were so raw and almost needy sounding, but not in a bad way. You could really get a grasp for what she may have been feeling, and the constant need for validation sort of broke my heart. It was tough to get through, but still worth the read.

I am wary of Linda Gray. Frieda Hughes is the eminently more trustable of the confessional-poet babies.

This is the edition I own. The edition I first read was a beautiful library hardcover. I think I'd like a copy like that as well. I love this book in much the same way as I love her poems.

gee. scary how much sense her madness makes to me. comforting, at the same time. one thing about her, though: this woman's a fucking machine of a writer! - and so tenderly humble.