by Anne Sexton
Is Jan proud? She must be. You know one poem that I didn’t know and like so much—“A Cardinal” … that’s a fine piece. And I don’t dare read it all carefully. Your things say so much without excess words.
Oh De, you are the most. I’m glad you are what you are and that your book is so fine. Now I’ll put it tenderly on the shelf and resist watching it live in me. But before I did this, I had to let you know.
So now I’ll go back to my own dry page and poke at it like a rough goat. Fool! Fool! I fumble with words for a mother and lounge in sad stuff with this love to catch, or catch as catch can.
But I’m so pleased and moved by your book. Knopf has been good to it. Now you just continue to be good to yourself.
And I give you permission not to tear this up. I mean it now and tomorrow.
On May 19, 1959, Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston accepted To Bedlam and Part Way Back, offering an advance against royalties of $200. Her close friend George Starbuck was to be her first editor.
[To Nolan Miller]
[40 Clearwater Road]
May 19th, 1959
Dear Good Kind Sweet Nolan Miller:
What wonderful bouncy encouraging letters you write! Your assumption that I could just sit down and write a novel—it is things like that that endear. Something, even, to cherish. So I will; both cherish and sit down and write a novel. And furthermore, just because you think I can.
Yes. But aside from all that. You must give me more time. I haven’t even READ any novels lately. Not, as you say, that I need to. But, because I want to know what I am doing, a little bit. I can still be a mushroom, but I’ve got to have texture, smell, taste, and a place to grow. Sure. I’ll grow from the ground, my ground, untutored stuff, but there are still things to test and learn. You know my first poems, my very first poems, were undisciplined, lacking in substance and technique. I have LEARNED this technique and not only from writing; but by keeping my ears to the ground the page and the critic. Only after I had learned a few techniques could I (and did I) start writing a mushroom at all. Before that it was crab grass. I don’t want to waste as much time with fiction. And I will, if I don’t stop and watch what I am doing. But the point is … I’ve been putting this off. And I won’t any longer. Now I’m starting … but give me a little time, time for less crab grass etc.
If not this year at Antioch, perhaps next—I can’t tell. I have just started (you see). The book of poetry has been accepted by Houghton Mifflin (as of today—I was awaiting their final decision so I could write you an answer). It won’t come out for a year or so—but it is taken. So much for that. I wish I might come to Antioch so that you could look at the book and to get your suggestions. (You see, Nolan, I trust YOUR intuition plenty!) … I am pleased about the book, really. Tho since the Hudson came out I have had letters from two other pub. houses asking if they could see my book.
It has taken me, from the first poem, 2 years and four months. (to today) … It took me one year and four months to my first acceptance from Antioch Review (and that was my first real acceptance). Therefore I think it ought to take me at least a year before I can really write a decent piece of prose. I’ve got so many new horrid mistakes ahead. But then. It’s worth it. I know I must sound strange making a kind of “program” out of it. But this is how I set myself goals etc. It pushes me to work harder if it isn’t just an empty void of writing into nothing. When I started to send poems out to magazines I said to myself, “I’ll get a poem accepted SOMEWHERE within two years” … and then set out to beat my goal.…
Of course, the goals have matured. Now and long since when the magazine acceptance ceased to work—now it’s got to be a Good Poem (worst critic Anne Sexton) … The reason I go into all of this junk is so you will understand what I mean when I say I’ve started. I have a new goal. I won’t tell you what it is. No. I will too! I must; you gave it to me. I am promising myself that I will write some fiction (I think I will start with short stories tho) and sell it within a year from Christmas. And maybe I can beat the deadline. And maybe not. If I write anything I think is half way good I’ll send it to you. Okay? […]
In fact, I will write you a sensible letter soon. I wanted to hurry off a reply to your kind letter. You just went and cheered me up. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
Love,
Anne
[attached to preceding letter]
I’ve had this letter on my desk for two days, hesitating to mail it and planning to rewrite it. It sounds a little conceited or “I can do anything” … and since this is only a now and then mood (soon lost), perhaps I am Manic or something, I didn’t want it to go out … But send it anyhow. The buoyancy was your doing and most of my letters are depressed and full of self doubt.
The words I write in letters are never real anyhow. I hook into my mood and drain it onto the paper. The doubter is back today—but sends this anyway with love—the fact is—I have [not?] written for a month—
[To W. D. Snodgrass]
[40 Clearwater Road]
June 9th, 1959
Dear Dear De,
2 nice letters to be answered. You cheer! I’m so glad you do like the final version of “Division of Parts” [TB]—god, how unsure I am always am; needing constant reassurance that new things are good (good enough). It is indeed, a marathon, a marathon with yourself to outrun your last distance or something. And too, the vision is always unreachable; not ever realized in the result. But, when YOU like it, I feel surer. (tho I WISH you wouldn’t keep telling me it suffers from Lowell’s voice or your voice when, of course, I’m so sure that I haven’t borrowed anyone’s voice. Or, at least, sure about the Lowell influence. I’ve been so careful not to read his work. If anything, [I] have been influenced by his critical sense, his teaching—you know, just sitting in class and keeping my big ears clean and open. And YOU told me to. And I did … Jesus, I’m a defensive creature! and in manicy moments I say to myself, I’m better than Lowell!—How is that for poetic conceit.!!! You know, De, I never WANTED to take a course from him because I always heard he had such mixed imagery […] These were my faults and I didn’t want to be influenced by my own weaknesses. But, when you told me you had studied with him … Still, I’m damn glad I did. He taught me great. It was as easy as filling an empty vase. After all, I didn’t know a damn thing about any poetry really. 2 years ago I had never heard of any poet but Edna St. Vincent … and now do know how to walk through lots of people’s poetry and pick and pick over … god, is this still an aside.)))))) … And now that little argument is over. You are a good boy. You are good for me.
I’m glad you’re glad the book is sold. I will not wait for the Lamont. I want to get it out and out of the way. My first book, all about my own madness, is an encumbrance. I wish that you would look at it. Would you? Do you have the emotional-intellectual-time for it??? If I paid you a pittance would it help??? I would be glad to if you wish … Lowell is gone. I do not trust all the poems in the book nor the poems that Lowell told me to take out. There are about ten poems out of it that could go back in. I don’t care especially about line-by-line crit as much as a heavy hand (a trustable one) marking “take out” “put in” on the pages. I have taken out the seemingly lyrical, early, Lowell-won’t-allow-such-things out of the book. And what is worse. There isn’t one (not even a little one) love poem. Imagine! A woman, her first book, and not a love lyric in the lot. Except in the way that “D. of Parts” [TB] is a love poem to a dead mother etc. I know that this kind of thing is more of a love work than the stereotyped kind. But still. I enclose for your casual glance a couple that I have taken out. Wondering, if they are too weak to include????
And, directly, let me ask you, would you look at the book. Would you have the time? I would pay you $20.00. I mean, that’s not really anything. But I would if it helped.
I drag on with poetry talk and you NEVER tell me what you are doing and writing. Why don’t you send me copies? You OUGHT to care about my opinion. I am your first and a devout fan and your
severest critic. (and I’m not a bad judge either. You really weren’t famous when I picked you out. I had no one else’s opinion when I read “Heart’s Needle”—)
I have been having a terrible time lately. A week ago at this time I was in “the summer hotel” (local institution for nervous breakdowns […]). God knows what was wrong with me. I just sat in there and cried. For 3 days. I didn’t eat or sleep. I just cried. Then I got hold of myself and got out. My Doctor is against institutions and always persuades me to leave. For 3 days it cost me $92.00 …!!! Pretty expensive tears I would say. I haven’t cried since, at any rate. I got out on Tuesday. Got home and started putting my pieces back into place. Read your first letter, looked at my book again, at letter from Fred Morgan taking 2 new poems (one being the “Division of Parts” [TB]) … and was about to get the girls back on Wed. morning when my sister called and told me that my father had just died of a heart attack.
So now he is funeraled, cremated, and I have no parents left to run away to Calif. from. Some misty god has shoved me up the ladder and I am my own inheritor … I am going to try and NOT write a poem about it. God damn morbid life I’ve been leading, that’s all I can say. How can I write anything positive? My old gods are tumbled over like bowling pins. All is an emotional chaos. Poetry and poetry alone has saved my life.
The trouble with everyone just up and dying like that is that there are no faces left to throw your emotions at: love or hate. What do you do with the emotion? It’s still there, though they are gone?!!!!… (I’m not really asking you; just confiding my every puzzle) … But, this has been one hell of a year. I don’t know how I ever managed to write as much as I have.
Maxine has sold a children’s book to Putnam’s. It was written in the form of a poem. 80 lines and a $500.00 advance! That’s the way to make money, boy!… I will try it myself, perhaps. If I ever get my life in place.
I am glad that Phil Booth likes my stuff. He called, one day, to tell me. I told him (he hadn’t seen it himself) that I was your great admirer and “Heart’s Needle” reader. (I should have kept my yap shut. He had no idea I knew you … I guess I want to hide your influence on my poetry. But, I notice, I did not; in fact, I offered the information. Credit where credit is due. My love.)
I met Philip Rahv a month ago and he is very cordial and friendly and father-figurey, kind of. I complimented him on printing your GREAT article … I also like Diana Trilling’s thing. Did you? You both looked like those real toads in the imagernary garden. (you don’t mind if I don’t bother to spell … I’m sure).
Stop sending me written “pinches.” I need “pats” and am not the pinchy type. Last year, at Antioch, you told me (I bet you forget) that I was a “great lady” … You did! Well, just put me back there and stop pinching me via the stamped envelope. I have forgotten your bodily self. It is too long ago. Only the soul remains. And that is for the best. It’s so safe and at the same time, so true. Oh well, enough said—my soul sends your soul a pinch …
luv
Annie
[To Carolyn Kizer]
[40 Clearwater Road]
July 24th, [1959]
Dear Carolyn,
[…] I am going to study with Roethke this summer as I have received The Robert Frost Fellowship at Bread Loaf. He probably won’t like my work. And there we’ll be (you and me) with our Cal and our Ted, not liking our work enough (sobbing in our own private caves of womanhood and kicking at the door of fame that men run and own and won’t give us the password for) … Perhaps not. Perhaps we can exchange famous poets’ admiration, back and forth as if it were coin or old or solid. Eh?
I am going to see Fred Morgan in August and will mention your poem to him and twit him for missing a masterpiece. Okay? I leave in a week and have no more time to write another page.
Yours,
Anne
After visiting the Morgans in August, Anne and Kayo went on a fishing trip to Maine. In her thank-you note to Frederick Morgan, Anne remarked:
I really didn’t have too much fun in the woods this time. The trouble with the woods is that you take yourself … only more so. I don’t know what Thoreau would say about it. Perhaps I’ll write a poem about it sometime: living in the deep woods is no escape. The trees become mirrors and only your voice answers back. The deer is not my brother, nor the trout as I pull him in, slapping at death.
Anne went to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in late August, and discovered an old friend from the Antioch conference, Hollis Summers.
[To Hollis Summers]
40 Clearwater Rd.
August 31st, 1959
Dear Cousin Hollis,
My suds, I’m back in the suburbs, the children are having an acorn fight on the front lawn, it is 95 in the shade of the acorn tree, a ham is cooking itself and me in the oven (my desk is situated in the dining room, but at the door leading into the kitchen …)
All things being equal (and they surely are) I am beginning to feel and speak like a human living woman that I am. My voice, as it descended from Bread Loaf, had a terrifying whiskey tone (gin I guess—but the same bloodstream voice) … My doctor said that I’d been on a binge. I mean, he knew I hadn’t—but I certainly attended one and did indeed partake thereof. […]
I don’t think I had a chance to say farewell to you. But I liked your speech. I mean, I heard it. It seems important for you to know I listened. And besides, you know perfectly well that your yankee cousin does not like saying goodbyes.
So I have been settling back since my return on Wednesday. Music, music, music … my life and music music music … and your book OF COURSE!… and have even written a poem which I will enclose for your approval. It is only one hour old so don’t be too critical. Though I have been trying to write it, bits and starts, for six days.
Answer me or I shall cry.
Best,
Annya
Chapter II
All Her Pretty Ones
October 1959–December 1962
A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren’t enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.
Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hats,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.
“The Black Art”
from ALL MY PRETTY ONES
The next four years were prolific and exciting for Anne. She began to refine her gift. Although her sporadic outbreaks of mental illness continued, as did her therapy, the family learned to ride out the episodes. Now Kayo wore the Santa Claus suit from Abercrombie and Fitch, and the children left water and carrots on the back stoop for the reindeer who couldn’t land on a modern pitched roof. They even weathered the trials of housebreaking a Dalmatian puppy. Her daughters brought her happiness: each year they measured the width of the chimney to see if Santa could still fit down that narrow brick tube—after all, they reasoned, wasn’t he growing too? Linda marched through the house reciting the multiplication tables. Joy tap-danced dents in the kitchen linoleum. When Linda won the lead in the children’s musical, Sarah Crewe, An
ne taught her nine-year-old to belt it out, despite her own inability to stay on key.
Kayo had advanced in business, and now, in the summer, the children went to day camp. In August, the Sextons rented a cottage in West Dennis on Cape Cod. But the greatest self-indulgence was free; Anne loved the sun. No matter when it shone—even in winter, stripped to her underwear, wrapped in her mother’s mink coat, she would sunbathe atop the backyard snowbanks. Finally, as Anne earned more in royalties and from grants, they put in a small swimming pool.
To Bedlam and Part Way Back came out in March 1960, receiving many favorable reviews, and a few fan letters slid through the mail slot at 40 Clearwater Road. Anne answered every one. Meanwhile, All My Pretty Ones had begun to grow. She wrote steadily, aware that her poems now would find immediate acceptance. Her letters to the editors of various magazines reflect her maturation; her earlier tentative cordiality was replaced by an easy, familiar tone. But, though she enjoyed her new status, the more notice she received, the more exposed and vulnerable she felt. She wrote to Carolyn Kizer in September, “I think I am aging fast. By the time I get to New York in October to read at YMHA I will be an old, wrinkled, yellow woman leaning on a stick.” Nevertheless she plunged on, determined to explore and experience and record.
[To Frederick Morgan
THE HUDSON REVIEW]
[40 Clearwater Road]
Friday Oct. 16th, 1959
Dear Fred,
Many thanks for your letter that relieved me of all neurotic worries about you being angry with me and that told me to go ahead and try for the Guggenheim. I did try for it. So time will tell.
I have had serious troubles since (why is it that writers can’t have slight troubles. But never. Always some big damn thing) … So I just got out of the hospital having had an operation … not exactly a hysterictomy (can’t spell that one, for sure) but half a one kind of. They also took out my appendix as long as they were in there and an ovary and a cyst the size of a grapefruit. Ugh, the medical is so explisit. (can’t spell anything today. Too weak.)