by Anne Sexton
You do not need to answer this letter. I just wanted to let you know the meanwhiles and if so’s. If I do not make it I will surely meet you sometime.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Sexton
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Thursday now
[circa October 6, 1958]
Mr Dear Mr. Snodgrass,
How in heaven’s name can I write anything when I seem to be constantly writing to you. Who says this is a waste of time—I have given up poetry in favor of letters anyhow.
Lowell just called and says the poets’ theater wants you on November 9th. I imagine he will write you to this effect. I want to announce that I will be there clapping and also that on November Ninth I will be thirty years old. I am crossing the margin and may no longer plead youth as my excuse. I don’t mind being skinny and wrinkled but I do mind, resent really, years wasted with my own neurotic living and my dull mind. I have really been alive for only a year … but my natal date is november 9, 1928.
I shall never write a really good poem. I overwrite. I am a reincarnation of Edna St. Vincent … I am learning more than you could imagine from Lowell. I am learning what I am not. He didn’t say I was like Edna (I do—a secret fear)—also a fear of writing as a woman writes. I wish I were a man—I would rather write the way a man writes.
Don’t mind me. I have been, in truth, very depressed lately—tho I am adroit at hiding behind the verbal and pretty mask—still, I am depressed. My mother is dying of cancer. My mother says I gave her cancer (as though death were catching—death being the birthday that I tried to kill myself, nov. 9th 1956). Then she got cancer … who do we kill, which image in the mirror, the mother, ourself, our daughter????? Am I my mother, or my daughter? Snodsy, I am afraid to love. How do you love? Teach me—you are a good man. I feel you loving your daughter … I felt it when I first read that poem … don’t answer all this … I am not taxing you with my turmoils […]
Ah Snodsy you are famous.
You don’t SEEM famous. I looked at your wild handsome overgrown face and thought “of course, of course, this is Snodgrass!” AND SOMEONE WAS THERE.
ANNE (THE HUDSON REVIEW MADE A MISTAKE) SEXTON
[She enclosed a critique of Snodgrass’s poem “The Red Studio.”]
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Sat. 7:00 A.M.
[circa November 15, 1958]
Dear My Dear Mr. Snodgrass.
When I was a little girl I had a funny little club called “THE TENDER HEART CLUB” … I was president. My mother was treasurer and my Nana was Nice President (I meant Vice Pres. but ‘nice’ is better) … The point being, that I am a tender heart still, vulnerable, never wise, but tender hearted. And although the club disintegrates slowly, although time makes madmen and corpses of some, I am still the President of my own club in my own way. My Nana went crazy when I was thirteen. Then she was only a crazy tender heart. At the time I blamed myself for her going because she lived with our family and was my only friend. Then at thirteen I kissed a boy (not very well—but happily) and I was so pleased with my womanhood that I told Nana I was kissed and then she went mad … I tell you this not to confess, but to illuminate. At thirteen, I was blameful and struck—at thirty I am not blameful (because I am always saved by men who understand me better than I understand myself). I am not immoral. I am not wise. But still, I am not cruel. I have no place loving you and because I let you be my god for a while, I was in need of loving, of giving love, and not wise, nor cagey, nor—just walking around wearing my womanhood and trying to keep us all sane. Failing this entirely, I give you back to yourself, with all the tenderness I have ever known for you and yours (my good night clerk in your emotional hotel).
I wrote Will Stone [a coastguardsman she had met at Antioch] a reply that is so fine that I think I shall correspond with him forever. I think he loves me—tenderly and encouragingly. It has nothing to do with my life or living, and is just there, to taste when I need it. Today I need it, as I lean toward madness (such an escape, such a simple childlike full believing state) … But if I live long enough, if time keeps me whole enough and a living reading writer of my day, perhaps I will go to some conference … The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not. The trade winds blow me, and I do not know where the land is; the waves fold over each other; they are in love with themselves; sleeping in their own skin; and I float over them and I do not know about tomorrow. I am a mixer of obscure metaphor by ill habit like many minor and unmentioned poets.
Kayo left for two weeks trip this morning. I need him—“women marry what they need—I marry him” (beg pardon to Ciardi) …
I have been a tender heart with Will Stone and he does not feel guilty any longer (I mean, I tried and I think I helped) …
My two girls play with itinerant mices and their small furry fingers hop over my eyes in the morning when I am not admitting that I am awake. After you left I washed “snodgrass tattoos” off four arms. One a picture of you. You came off with soap! The house misses you—Snodgrass is part of our family, it seems.
If you misread this I will be very angry!! I am not saying anything!! Except that Will Stone wrote me a crazy nice letter and I am writing you the like because you are a night clerk, because you are home with Jan and Buzzy and because I hope you are recovering and because I never meant to confuse you, least of all!
Also when you read my poem I want a critical opinion NOT a friendly one. Poetry is special, is something else. As a poet I admire (not as my night clerk love), I want your real idea, unclothed from your feeling for the writer … Poetry has saved my life and I respect it beyond both or any of us. I love Maxine but when her poems stink I tell her so—because I love poetry and because I love her.
I am going to a mental institution today. I am hearing voices. I am never sane, you know—I pretended to be for your visit and THAT was kind. Although you didn’t know it. I really do not want a “nice” letter from you—but a critical opinion of “The Double Image” [TB] (if I knew what was wrong with it I might be sane again and get back to writing it).
haste
In chaos——df453679¢;!./’¢#!!!!
Anne
P.S. Please allow me the luxury of writing you this kind of confused letter without you misinterpreting it.
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
usual rush
[40 Clearwater Road
circa November 26, 1958]
Dear De,
Here is the poem, done for the moment [“The Double Image,” TB]. Apparently my short trip to “the sealed hotel” helped unblock me on its writing. I only want to know if you think this works, if it has a reason for its violence, a reason for being written (or rather read) aside from my own need to make form from chaos.
I KNOW you are exhausted and have little extra energy for others’ poems. A poet, in the long run, must be selfish; if he wants to be a best writer he can’t spend time on friends’ work. But I am not sending you all the stuff I’ve written since August (dozens) but just this—that you told me to write (tho maybe you didn’t know what you were saying or what I would HAVE to write about) … You told me I hadn’t found my voice. But this poem has a voice. A changing, lame, but real voice, I think … Whether it is my best voice, I am not sure. It is the voice I HAD to use and maybe your opinion won’t change me—still, if you can find the time, I would enjoy your opinion, pro or con.
Snodsy, let’s be friends! Let’s be poets first—all else is unessential. Return this when you are done with it unless you want to keep it because it is a bother to type. Only some of the sections are syllabic count—the others being freer and looser, despite the looks of the thing.
We are enjoying your record. I am such a dullard I forgot to thank you. And the children love their mouses. Kayo keeps building them a “mouse house” out of cardboard and they spend considerable time on all this.
Went
to Lowell’s class yesterday. I guess I forgive him for not liking me (if he didn’t like me as I thot) because he has such a soft dangerous voice. He seemed more friendly yesterday. He is a good man; I forgive him for his sicknesses whatever they are. I think I will have to god him again; gods are so necessary and splendid and distant.
Don’t answer this. Just write: yes, no, possible, perhaps, sort of, … or whatever … about this poem. At least I am done with it. Thank god for that … My father is now ill with a cerebral hemorrhage and so I have that to worry about, now. Though I shan’t write a long poem about it. No guilt there—sorrow is easier than guilt.
I am sorry I keep writing crazy letters. You should not have crazy friends, my sweet night clerk, but sane and uplifting friends. Thank god you have Jan. Be good to yourself and think of me kindly enough.
And give me a one word statement about this “voice” I’ve got here for two-hundred odd lines of confession and art. (Art I hope?) The difference between confession and poetry? is after all, art. That poem of yours about “The Red Studio”—I can’t forget the lines “but his own room drank him” and “there was no one there” … If you get two lines so good they keep ringing in my head then the poem is, of course, a success. So you see what time does to my judgment!
Naturally, Anne
[To Nolan Miller]
40 Clearwater Rd.
[27] Nov. 1958
Thanksgiving
Dear Nolan,
I have looked everywhere for my large envelope containing “letters from famous people” and cannot find it. However, I am answering your fine letter, at long last, despite the missing envelope. As a matter of fact I have had copies of poems typed up to send to you for two months now.
Today, being thanksgiving, I give thanks that I have finished my “long” poem [“The Double Image,” TB]. I have not written before because of that damn poem and because I do want your opinion and crit on it. I sent the others along (to show you I am still writing) and for any passing comments but I really care most about “The Double Image”. It is a kind of a voice; but is it a good voice? You know, Nolan, people keep telling me that I haven’t found my “voice” yet and I have spent considerable time fishing around in my desk drawers and under old ms. and have found no new notable sound. Therefore I wrote this long poem on my best bond paper as if it deserved it from the beginning. Etc. Etc. What I mean is something like, “what do you think?” etc. etc. […]
I enjoyed Antioch so much. I am glad you discovered me and I hope you can wade through my long poem and give me your opinion.
with all best wishes,
Anne
please forgive this inahurrytogetinthemailbox letter
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
day after thanks-giving
[November 28, 1958]
Dear passionflower tender,
I was just looking out the window at the truck that was delivering two bottles of whiskey and it was, yes it was, snowing. I am young. I am younger each year at the first snow. When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving; then I am in love again and very young and I believe everything. Christ is in his manger and Santa in heaven. I am a good girl and the man left two bottles of booze because my mother is rich and she ordered them. She is staying with us because my father is ill, in the hospital with a stroke. My mother keeps telling me that soon I will be rich because they will be dead (she is greedily wordy about this) and I listen to her and think about a poem by you about a mother … she is like a star … everything MUST center around her.
And I write in a hurry because it is snowing and because this morning I received a letter from you and because I would rather write to you this moment than sleep with Apollo or even go outside and measure the snow on the walk. I write to you because you understand my letters and do not take them TOO seriously or too casually. And because, after all, I love you and you are my best god anyhow.
Did I? Why do I forget everything! send you a complete copy of my “Double Image” poem the other day? I sent it to someone that I cared about. But was it you? Who else could there be, that I care about—about reading it??? I think I did. If so—read it. If not—let me know.
I also received a nice letter from Jim McConk taking two poems for Epoch (it’s about time) and saying such nice things about my work and when was my book coming out (I didn’t believe that but it looked nice on the page) and all. That sweet ladypoet from Rochester took two poems for Voices (don’t know why I sent there—but did—one of the ones was a new one, “Obsessional Combinations of Ontological Inscape, Trickery and Love” … why am I rambling on? Now I know why I am really writing you so promptly. I have a question—
How do I go about applying for Yaddo? Would John Holmes be enough of a recommendation? Who else could I find? Would Nolan Miller (he thinks he discovered me) help? Or Hollis Summers [a novelist from the Antioch summer session] (he writes me letters)—I might be able to go. I think the first thing to do is see if I could get in—do you think, perhaps, it would be better to wait a year (in view of that fact that I’m such a “new” writer) …
John Holmes is having a small party for John C. Ransom next Wed. night and has asked me so maybe I will meet someone who will decide to discover me. I will be on the lookout for a possible famous soul who can recommend me …
But how do you go about it, dear night clerk; the future is my own. I am trying to steer. I paddle my own craft with toothpick oars … thank you for quoting my letter … I will write you dozens more someday. I doubt if I can use it in a poem (but there is lots more where that came from). I am a romantic and am full of tiers of tries of all that.
let me know about Yaddo—
yours Anne
[To Nolan Miller]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Wednesday 11 Dec. 1958
Dear Nolan:
You are my favorite famous person! And what a nice letter and such splendid enthusiasm, after all … and thank you, as always, thank you.
I am set right up by your discussion of my voice, and which voice works etc. Because, I agree with you—and I feel more capable of steering the craft. You are my radar, my double check and now it’s full wind ahead. […]
I don’t know who could beat Snodgrass as poet-teacher for next summer. His talk was amazingly fine I thought. His class was good too—tho I don’t know yet, if he is the best “teacher”. I got more actual crit. from my conferences with you and Hollis. Still I learned something about poetic sincerity from Dee that may be just as important. I like James Wright’s poetry and have met him. Or maybe Donald Hall (I haven’t met him tho) … Still, neither of them have the wild genius way that Dee seems to radiate. Eudora Welty sounds great. By then I may have some prose to submit. […]
Per your advice: I am writing a new poem in my own symbolic world of the half-sane, knowledgeable insane … and I am really stimulated by your remarks.
Before you leave please drop a note and advise me where I ought to try “The D. Image” [TB] thing. Maybe I should try Poetry—tho Dee says it stinks …?…
Thank you Nolan Miller, as always …
Better Best’s …
Anne
Since the spring of 1958, Anne had submitted sixteen poems to Frederick Morgan, editor of The Hudson Review. All were rejected; then in October he accepted “You, Doctor Martin” [TB] and “Elizabeth Gone” [TB]. Anne was overjoyed. Having worked all fall on the intensely painful and personal poem “The Double Image,” she submitted it to The New Yorker but it was returned. Finally she mailed it off to Morgan on December 11. His acceptance arrived on December 30 and in her next letter to him she called it her “best Christmas present.” She agreed to delete the subtitle, “A Confession,” referring to it as “a hat on a naked lady.”
Expansively, she soon made The Hudson Review her favorite magazine. With trepidation she went to New York City to meet Morgan and his wife Rose, and in August she and Kayo were their house guests in Main
e.
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Jan 11th 1959
Dear Mr. Dear W. D.…
I hope that all went well in New York. I have kind of been looking for a letter from you—but just now thot that since our letters crossed neither owes either. And of course I love you. And sometimes I worry about you. Mostly I just worry about myself. However, today I raised my head out of a long three weeks of damn depression and now realize that there really are other people. There is someone there. I had just forgotten. (Not really forgotten about YOU—that’s impossible) …
I got a nice letter from Poetry Northwest and they are considering the stuff I sent. Thanks for writing them about me and so forth. I am beginning to run out of good material (not quite but almost all the best have been sold) … But am still writing new ones—or was before the depression gloomed in. Right now I ought to be writing as [I] have a couple buzzing my brain. But first had to send words to you (I’m the crazy one who thinks that words reach people). […]
I have stuck my poems together as if they could be a book and Lowell is looking it over. Did I make a mistake? I don’t know. Still, he seems receptive to the idea and said he would tell me frankly if there was enough good stuff for a book. (tho God knows how you get them published—) He seems impressed that Hudson took “The Double Image” [TB]. So long (240 lines) and all. And then in the next breath he said, “But I knew they would take it. It was just a question of where to send it.” …????… He is difficult to figure. The class is good. I am learning leaps and boundaries. Tho I am very bitchy acting in class. I don’t know why but I am very defensive around Lowell (I think I am afraid of him) … so I act like a bitch with these sarcastic remarks … The class just sits there like little doggies waggling their heads at his every statement. For instance, he will be dissecting some great poem and will say “Why is this line so good. What makes it good?” and there is total silence. Everyone afraid to speak. And finally, because I can stand it no longer, I speak up saying, “I don’t think it’s so good at all. You would never allow us sloppy language like that.” … and so forth. But I don’t do this for effect. But because the line isn’t good. What do you do—sit there and agree and nod and say nothing …?… 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 figuring you out. You are so human and puzzling and my splendid oaf.