by Anne Sexton
What are you writing? If you send me a copy I promise to keep THE MACHINE silent. I will only love it and wonder it and be glad your words are barking along at the top of the sky.
I got a whole mess of books for Xmas, among them Philip Larkin’s—which I enjoy and Randall Jarrell and Frost and others. Where is your book? I want to buy it!!! I want to buy it quickly so you will be rich and famous and lapping in luxuries and touring the world with Jan at your side. And also stopping at places to be the night clerk, as always.
Midst the rubble of this place my daughters still play with their mices (for which Kayo made a house) and the aura of you remains, remains, remains …
Ugh, I think I am missing you, & right now! I don’t know why—you are such a contrary creature. But I do. We do. Should I invite you again? I mean, you do know that you are always welcome here. Don’t you?
If I have a copy I will send it along—of a recent poem I have & will enclose [“Some Foreign Letters,” TB]). For your reading or not reading?? Just to let you know I’m still writing.
And Happy New Year, my darling, and all good things for you and yours,
fondly,
Anne
[…]
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
FEB THE FIRST [1959]
My dear night clerk
How was Yaddo? I hope it was good and that the writing goes well. I can’t find your last letter to answer in kind so (I ought to know it by heart—I read it a zillion times) will do my best.
I can’t tell you how your advice etc. helped when I went to New York. I mean, I think it helped. I am never sure. I might have axed myself—but I don’t think I did. At any rate, it was very easy to be easy with Fred Morgan. He didn’t SEEM shy or difficult but charming and very warm and friendly. I tried NOT to act suave (as you said) but this was difficult because part of my well-worn mask is being suave … I tried to tone down the mask and, as you said, “be myself.” If there had been time I would have written you back, “which self????” … but there wasn’t time … Still, I was pretty much my own self’s self, booming with enthusiasm about this and that and (now that I look back on it) mostly enthusiasm for your work. One thing sure, I raved about your genius constantly. I hadn’t planned to or anything—but it happened that way. And not, De, that you need it … For me, now, you are not a God (you are right Lowell is taking THAT spot over), but you are an honestly lame real genius (and there are few enough of them writing around). I noticed in the trend of conversation that you have been mentioning me to Fred and that it didn’t hurt any. (unlike you—I do need it) … And many thanks … Why are you so nice to me, Snodsie … do I deserve it? as a writer?… I WANT to deserve it, but I wonder in passing at such miracles and devotions. And anyhow, forget the question—but take the thank you. […]
Is this letter strange? or more sensible or extra flat? I am trying a flat mask to hold my sanity up … my life is falling through a sieve … With all these good fine things happening to my poetry (and I haven’t told you half of it yet) I’m dropping out of myself. Partly because my mother is dying now and I … I know it’s crazy, but, I feel like it is my fault … Now don’t lecture to me, De, I’m just telling you how it feels. My father, since his shock, is not the same; he acts about ten years old, and keeps crying and begging my mother not to die. I don’t know how long this will all last, maybe a week, maybe two months—they won’t tell us for sure. She is in the hospital with cancer now in her liver, stomach, lungs and bones … (I feel guilty. Remember the letter I wrote you about hating her) … What do we do with our old hate? I feel as if, now, I were taking each one of her bones, separately, and carrying them to a soft basket. It is hard too, when people die slowly, slowly, slowly; bone by bone to the soft basket …
And analysis goes poorly. I think the guy thinks I’m psychotic. Or something … I have this crazy new symptom (he calls it a symptom) where I pass out, black out actually … and sometimes stay out for 24 hrs. Once crossing the street in Boston during a snow storm, they found me in the gutter (GUTTER)—out——for 18 hours and so forth. No physical reason. A hysterical type of thing, I guess. Tho once, half-waking up in a strange hospital I heard the nurse say “looks catatonic to me” … all quite frightening. And by the way, don’t mention this to anyone … with most people, I prefer that they think of me as normal or as normal as possible … and even you, my dear, I won’t continue with all this as it’s very discouraging. And I am very discouraged about it.
The thing that seems to be saving me is the poetry (I refuse to misspell that word, at least) … Lowell is really helping me, De, as kindly as possible and I can’t figure it out. I am always so startled by goodness. He likes the looks of my “book,” with some critical reservations, and has shown it to Stanley Kunitz and Bill Alfred) who both, he says, agree with his enthusiasm (and his reservations). He is going to show it to somebody Ford at Knopf this week to see if he would be interested. And Houghton Mifflin wants to see it. He thinks that I ought to make my final goal Sept.—at which time it should be ready to be printed. Tho, he says, I might not be lucky—but then I might. Still, in total he likes my work a lot and … isn’t that something, De … I mean, I am—jeepers creepers about it. He means by Sept. that I might get it accepted now, but should still rewrite and work out the poorer stuff and write some new ones to fill their place.
I am confused and delighted with this—and time and the publishing market will tell the rest. But, I remind my self’s self, I’ve got to stay sane to do it.
By the way (and by the way of asking your opinion), he (R.L.) thinks that “By Nameless Flesh” is one of the “poor” poems and should be omitted. I remember that you liked it and once said, “well, it doesn’t matter about the magazine that took it—it will be in your book someday” … Do you still think this? I am about to take it out of the “book” unless you still feel it is good …?… I have changed it a little since you saw it, flattened the over-statements, etc. But apparently that isn’t enough. Have you an opinion?
With all of this I am ready not to get too hopeful and am willing to wait my 4 or 5 years. If my mind stays intact and the writing progresses as it has been, then I really don’t care so terribly about “success.” The “next” poem is always THE thing, the question, the fear. I really do feel that the only true thing about me is possibly a good poem or a good line—aside from that it is “mask” … even for you, most always, mask … (I don’t mean YOU. I mean when I am with you, even you, it is a mask. Old rudderless mask. And still I love you. Love you for being your own self—not quite as marvellous as your own poems but so kin to them, as amazingly real as they are …
And enough of you. It’s just that I won’t give up loving your work. Won’t won’t won’t. So there … Perhaps, after all, it is better to love someone who is very far away (like Scottsville is farther away than I can get to). It is as if I could say to my desk’s soul that THERE IS SOMEONE THERE knowing this is safe because it is the idea of you that is there, here, every other elsewhere.
Whoops! I’m forgetting I was going to write a plain howdy-do flat letter.
And Joe Bennett said, “O, do you know Snodgrass” and I laughed and replied, “Know Snodgrass! I love Snodgrass!” and we all laughed. I told Fred about your genius talk at Antioch and how the audience fell down in praise, etc. I also mentioned it ought to be printed … and it should … tho I expect you want to talk it a few more times. I wish I had a copy of it. I NEED some poetic tact. Would you, my dear, send me 1/2 lb. of poetic tact, post-paid?
I AM being kind to Lowell. I promise. I take everything, anything back … all of it … etc … he is being kind to me also. I was never unkind to him anyhow. Don’t you know, De, I am not an unkind folk. I am (despite cracking mask etc.) a gentle heart. I will nod from now on. No matter what he says I will just nod. I always knew he was teaching me a hell of a lot—it was just the nodding I minded. I wondered if it could be stimulating to teach a class where no one q
uestioned or even answered YOUR questions … just a bunch of nodders. But if YOU just nodded then that is for me too.
Actually, Lowell can not have influenced my work with his work as I haven’t been reading his stuff … just listening to his ideas about other people’s work. I do not feel he is influencing me—but teaching me what NOT to write—or mainly. Christ. This IS getting to be a long letter. I liked your comments on “Some Foreign Letters” [TB] and have changed one line per your advice. Tho your advice wasn’t too specific. I like crit., you know, or otherwise wouldn’t ask for it. I’ve left the ending tho. I think I do want it to end, just the way it does. Kind of rough, but the way I intended, really …
Forget the bridal veil. As of now you owe me one bridal veil. And that takes care of THAT. To be returned only in kind—!
Got my stuff back from Virginia Quarterly yesterday (in case you haven’t—I was the last of ten known poets around here to get it back) … not that I care. They can take their crummy 500 bucks and …
Do you have the energy for two poems. In case you do. [… “A Story for Rose on the Midnight Flight to Boston,” TB]
This is fairly new and I feel that I would like your general opinion on its success or failure. A yes or no.
And here is another [“Ringing the Bells,” TB] that I, myself, like better. Or maybe only because I’ve had it to look at for a couple of weeks and it wears like an old hat. It isn’t so old as all that seeing as I wrote it from a recent (the calendar says it was Jan 6th) trip to the “summer hotel” that is rapidly becoming a winter jail … one good thing is that they don’t keep me in there too long anyhow. Tho if I don’t watch out, my Dr. says, I’ll be committed for 6 months … at any rate my book’s title, so far, is To Bedlam and Part Way Back … and this is another “bedlam poem.” […]
And that’s all. Let me know what you think of them if you can. As much or as little. They are not great. I know that. For the moment I have ceased trying to be “great.” Lowell told me to write ten more really good poems and now he has said THAT I can not write, hardly. So I gave the idea up and am doing as always, just writing what I can, what I have to. My stuff is always just what is actually going on. I can’t make it up any different. I fear I will have to write one about my mother dying. Tho, don’t WANT to, it is such a common boring subject.
Have I told you I love you? No. I just rattle on and on. Consider your moustache twitched. I wink at you. You are magnificent. I will buy three dozen copies of your book in April. Give my best to your good wife, your dear children, all of you and yours. Kayo passes by the typewriter and sends his best. And Joy and Linda too. You have walked through my universe—
let me know about Yaddo.
love, Anne
[…]
Early in 1959 Anne submitted several poems to Carolyn Kizer, editor of Poetry Northwest, who rejected and returned them with a letter full of incisive commentary. Kizer dared to question Anne’s work and thus earned her respect; in days when praise came easily, honest criticism was invaluable. Over the years she and Anne continued to write sporadic letters packed with poetic critique and warm-hearted gossip. When Kizer moved to Washington, D.C., in 1965, they preferred to communicate by phone. This early correspondence reveals one of Anne’s greatest strengths—an ability to welcome constructive criticism.
[To Carolyn Kizer
POETRY NORTHWEST]
40 Clearwater Road
5th of Feb. [1959]
Dear Carolyn Kizer,
I want to thank you quickly for your fine letter and all the comments. I like what you have to say and in most cases I think I have profited from your crit. Everyone needs GOOD detailed criticism and I know I do. Although I have many “poet-friends”, they are so used to my extra flamboyant stuff that they have missed reminding me (in some cases) to flatten it down. Which, in total, you did. And thank you. […]
Within my small experience I have never gotten such a nice and worthwhile letter from an editor. Any editor … Furthermore, I am pleased that the poems interested you enough to bother. and etc. It might interest you to know that your level of criticism seems about like Robert Lowell’s (and he is a good critic I think) … or, at least, what you said was about what he said about “The Death” one. (why the hell didn’t I change it when he told me??? I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe it takes a woman to tell a woman for god’s sake don’t do THAT) …
I hope you will bear this messy letter. I never bother with “letters” (simply NO control in this dept.) … though I do try with the poetry.
I do not know your work and wish I could see some. We seem to be running in the same track. I have a long thing (240 lines) and two other shorter ones coming out in the spring issue of The Hudson Review. I think the long one would interest you greatly as it is surely the most super charged thing I’ve done, and is entirely about the “mother child” relationship. A feminine and directly emotional piece that will make most readers flinch and probably the men! most of all. So perhaps it is a bad thing that it did get in there as I tend (now) to think I can get away with it … when, after all, I should remember to (as you say) turn down the volume knob. If you have a chance to see it, let me know what you think. I would be very interested. In fact, if you don’t run into a copy and would like to read it let me know and I will send you one. […]
The reason I was in a hurry is that Lowell is pushing me to send out fat groups to the big places. and I am getting short of what he thinks constitutes a “group” … Being a “poet” in Boston is not so difficult except that there are hoards of us living here. The place is jammed with good writers—it’s very depressing.
As you may note I can’t spell. And at this point my husband insists I put the children to bed … so it goes …
I look down at your letter and an underlined sentence jumps out at me “the phenomenon is the poem” … and I say to you, Carolyn Kizer, the phenomenon is NOT the poem at all, but an editor, like you.
a million thanks and best wishes,
Anne Sexton
(no pen around here)
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Feb. mon something or other
[circa 11, 1959]
Dear Mr. Dear De,
Bride’s veil received today. But no letter. Am I off the list? Am [I] a bad girl that didn’t know she was being a bad girl? I don’t care if you don’t write, really, but can’t bear to be a bad girl.
I NEED communication from you because only YOU know if I axed myself with Fred Morgan in N.Y.… now I think that I must have and you don’t know how to tell me. Please tell me, De. I must know if I’m axed or not. I trust you to give me the real scoop. Who else can I trust if not you, my good night clerk in your emotional hotel. Who else? The world is full of faces and dozens of liars. Zillions of men and all, but no one TELLS me. I have all sorts of would-be lovers but no one but Snodsy to trust. My dear trustable friend. Write me.
I don’t give a shit if you don’t read all the poetry I send you and ALL THAT STUFF. De for God’s sake, don’t stop writing because you can’t find time to plow through my lengthy letter. Just write me, a post card and say “axed” or “not axed” …
Enough of that. Thank Jan for the bride’s veil. Linda is now wearing it. They both have these bride costumes and parade back and forth beside the typewriter wearing them and singing as I tip tap type away … I have been working all afternoon on revising that “By Nameless Flesh” and grinding all the lyrical and overwritten stuff out. It is kind of like sandpapering a sunburn but I’m doing it. Lowell is very good for me; I mean his advice is good. A hard task master, but it is good for me. I THINK I am learning something. You know, De, I just adore learning things. I can feel my mind expanding like a pulled elastic band. I was always a dope in school (never paid the slightest bit of attention). I failed most things. (a real juvenile delink) … (or a real neurotic mess—depends on how you want to look at it) … I was afraid to succeed. Didn’t even try … Jesus god
thank you for psychiatry. Without a second chance (or last chance really) that it gave me I would be impossible-er … Of course I could always write somewhat—but it’s this business of writing BETTER that continues to fascinate me. Today I feel encouraged (revision of poem has gone well) and I’m hoping inside my mind, thinking “I will get better! I will learn! I will write!”—you know the feeling, I am sure. Of course there is always the let-down when you guess it was all a fraud anyhow—but I won’t worry myself with that, now.
I don’t know why the hell I’m writing you. I must like to, or something. I think I pretend you are real.
Nothing else new. Lowell’s class starts again tomorrow. My mother is still dying. I go to see her every day (being a good girl you see) … Have been asked to read March 1st at the poets’ theater with two other poets. It doesn’t mean anything actually but will be good experience.
Did I do something wrong? I am always doing SOME DAMN THING WRONG. If so, let me know. Did I say something wrong about you to Fred or, or or, anything? Is Jan mad? Or Fred mad? Or Buzzy mad? Or Mary Emma mad? Or Snodsy mad?