National Poetry Month Celebration (Pt. 1): Anne Sexton

It's the designated National Month of Poetry here in the United States. Since the Academy of American Poets first inaugurated it in 1996, publishers, booksellers, libraries, schools and poets around the country have banded together during the month of April to celebrate the poem and its place in American culture. To participate in the celebration, I have put together a list of poets who have influenced and inspired me in immeasurable ways--and will be exploring each throughout the rest of the month. To begin, here is the one and only Anne Sexton:



Anne Sexton is one of those rare modern poets who never requires anything from her reader. Every poem makes complete, abstract sense. She crafts phrases that roll off of the tip of the tongue so naturally, they make one believe they should have always been. Her work is stoically explicit and unashamedly feminine--a true beauty to behold.

The video above contains rare footage of Anne reading one of her poems, bantering with her husband, coddling her daughter--and, in essence, living the poet's life. She's stunning, exactly the way I would imagine her to be: Her voice and mannerisms are as seductive as the words she's reading; she lives with an obvious exaggerated passion, yelling at her dog with utter disdain, smoking with addictive pleasure; and she can describe off-handedly as well as perfectly how and why she loves Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. She demonstrates here and in her work the power of the living, breathing artist--a power that she proved with her life and death can sometimes be so strong, so great, it suffocates the vessel it inhabits.