by Anne Sexton
I’m okay—today. I’ll stay that way for a while I hope. [My doctor] comes back Tuesday, but I don’t see him until Thursday. Really it’s good to be away from conflict. It upsets me. He and it.
love to you Lois of London and Ireland
[To Shannon R. Purves
Editor, Houghton Mifflin Company]
[14 Black Oak Road]
September 17, 1968
Dear Mrs. Purves,
I cannot recommend C. K. Williams’ manuscript strongly enough. Although I am a wordmonger of sorts, he leaves me gasping. It would be a great loss to Houghton Mifflin if you turned this down. This is strong stuff, and at his best C. K. Williams is a demon. Poems like “Saint Sex,” “Three Seasons and a Gorilla,” “Patience is When You Stop Waiting,” “To Market,” “Before This,” “Don’t,” “Tales” and “A Day For Anne Frank” announce the coming of a new poet on the American scene. He is a master of metaphor. Better than any living American poet.
The collection does have some weak poems, maybe five or six. In places it goes a little soft. A poem like “My Wife,” although pretty and positive, only hinders. As I read and re-read the manuscript, I could not possibly concern myself about whether it should be published but only about placement of poems and trimming things up a bit, cutting out the weak ones, leaving in the ones that make you gag. What is Houghton Mifflin, jelly or something? The point isn’t whether the poems are negative or positive but how alive they are. Subject matter itself is not as important as the genius inherent in a great metaphor.
I’m not sure “Saint Sex” should start the book. I think I would prefer “Patience is When You Stop Waiting” or maybe “Don’t.” The title is marvelous. I would be glad to go over the placement and the building of the book with Mr. Williams should he care to make a trip to Boston. It’s a delicate thing, the question of what to take out and what to leave in, and I think the poet should have more to say about it. In the long run, he’s the one that knows. The only important thing I have to say about cutting is that we not cut the strong ones. In these so-called “unpleasant poems” he is being a Fellini of the word.
What more can I say?
Sincerely,
[To Lois Ames
England]
[14 Black Oak Road]
Sept 25th, 1968
Dear Lois are you still in England?
Bob said on the phone that you might not come home until Oct 10th. So this is just a note in case I’m not talking to you in person on the phone in a week.
DeCordova [“Her Kind” performance] was pretty good. I mean it was a little great! It had defects. The past few days all I do is argue with Bob Clawson. He can be such a prima donna. Of course I love the child in him but sometimes I hate the child in him. Trying to work things out with agents etc. It is a costly production. We have a drummer now and he costs 100 bucks; a sound man who costs the same … and by the time everyone gets a cut I’m working for less than I get at a reading. I made only 50 bucks from DeCordova because we hired a tape man to do a professional tape and that cost 700.
The above looks like a bad arithmetic problem. The thing was great really. All last week I had unbelievable anxiety. God! I’d wake up in the night (do you recall) and take more and more pills and Kayo tried to stop me and I said crazy things like “There is a girl on the wall” and then I’d go over and bang on the wall. Or I’d say (he tells me) “Stop writing in the ashtray.” I must be slightly psychotic from the pills. I smoke during this and keep falling asleep and burning things … I don’t know what to do. I’m in such a panic that I won’t sleep that even drugged I think I’m not sleeping. Lois, I don’t think I want to die by mistake! I feel that I’m heading for trouble. After Sunday (when we go out on somebody’s boat) I’m going back on Thorazine. It’s the only thing that calms me down. Right now it’s noon and I’m drinking—I use booze like medication, Deitz says.
Oh well.
Have I told you I have no job? However, maybe McLean’s Hospital is going to hire me for a weekly poetry workshop.
Howard Moss turned down “The Assisign” (sp!) [The Assassin,” BF] but said they loved it only [William] Shawn thought maybe they couldn’t print it because I USED THE SUBJECT.
I hate writing letters. I feel like an Indian sending up smoke signals or that I’m writing a telegram and leaving the most important nuances out. Since I’ve become a poet I am not a good letter writer. I just dash them off, knowing it’s not the real thing.
This morning I had a photographer here to take a pic for my book jacket. God I was frozen. I felt like a wax dummy or a picture of a picture.
I have no poems in me. I am an empty cup.
I have discovered a new poet, Charlie Williams, in Philadelphia, and have talked H.M. Co. into publishing him. I failed with Oxford and Michael Dennis Browne. But then I’ve only seen one poem of his. First time H.M.Co. has ever listened to me. The poems are snaky and entwined and fearful—very unconscious—they don’t tell stories as I do—quite different really. I like liking poets who aren’t like me.
I am a bride but there is no groom.
Enough of this. Keep writing poems and come home soon as you can. […]
I miss you!
love Anne of Weston
[To Howard Moss
THE NEW YORKER]
[14 Black Oak Road]
September 26, 1968
Dear Howard,
Sorry you couldn’t take “The Assassin” [BF], but I’m glad to hear you admired it.
The point to this letter is a query. Why does Ed Sissman get $300 for signing his contract and I get $100? What more is there to say?
With best wishes,
In September, Henry Rago, the editor of Poetry, invited Anne to read at “Poetry Day” in Chicago. In spite of the then current artists’ boycott of Chicago in protest against police brutality at the Democratic Convention of 1968, Anne accepted the invitation. She coupled her Chicago commitment with a promise to read at Mundelein College the night before her appearance at Poetry Day. Despite her usual adroitness, she could not soothe Rago’s anger when he discovered that one of his star attractions was giving a sneak preview.
[To James Ciletti
English Department
Mundelein College]
[14 Black Oak Road]
October 23, 1968
Dear Jim,
Those telephone exchanges with Henry Rago were the worst experiences with the world of poetry that I have ever had. He was unbelievably rude to you and haughty to me. That guy must be a real sob. I keep making up fantasy telegrams to him. For instance, the night before my arrival in Chicago “Dear Henry Rago, Due to illness and rudeness, I cannot appear,” “Dear Henry Rago, Due to illness and hung up phone, I will not be at poetry day.” “Dear Henry Rago, Due to honesty and belief, much like an illness in Chicago, I cannot appear at poetry day as I will be at Mundelein.” Or at the end of my rope, “Dear Henry Rago, Fuck you.”
As you can see, I have a tendency to be flamboyant, and I try to curb this as best I can. The reason I don’t do any of this is really not because Henry Rago can ever do me any good or really any harm but that I was asked to be at poetry day last spring, and it was the first commitment I had and apparently NO ONE ever takes an extra date in Chicago when they’re reading at poetry day. Thus it was my own fault for making arrangements with you, and you were very kind to let me off the hook. What I can’t quite see is how he could be so rude to you when you were doing him a favor. If you had said, “I will not let you out of the reading at Mundelein,” I would have come and he would have hated me. Now, I will meet him at poetry day and no matter how good an actress I am, I’m afraid my hostility will show, and he will hate me anyway. Poetry Magazine has a long history of helping young poets. It’s inconceivable to me that he could be so insensitive with you—never mind his attitude, his mightier-than-thou, prickish attitude with me. […]
If you can arrange another reading with joint colleges participating, I would be very happy. I
’m sure I’ll give a better reading for you than I will for Poetry with old sourball in the audience. The thing is, Jim, I hardly ever get angry with people. Anger is the missing ingredient in my personality, and even as I feel it now, I’m not happy with it. There seems to be nothing to do with it. Well, I’ll take all my swearing and put it in little star-crossed Christmas packages and bury it under one of the black oaks in the back yard.
With all best wishes,
In the fall of 1968 Anne took on a class at McLean Hospital—a private mental institution in Belmont, Massachusetts, where a number of well-known artists had been patients. She had said in a letter to a student, “Poetry led me by the hand out of madness. I am hoping I can show others that route.” Although her work there was difficult, she endured its rigors for the sake of her students. She had not left her experience with mental hospitals far behind her. Later she wrote of the class:
my first teaching of creative writing—[1968-]1969. Very difficult due to my insufficient knowledge of handling groups and the fact that the group was constantly changing and the aides were easily mixed up with the poets. Decided more commitment on the part of the poet is needed for me to be able to teach well.
In early 1969 Anne’s attitude toward teaching metamorphosed. She held a poetry workshop in her home for a group of Oberlin students during their January work-study period, organizing the class around her own ideas and goals. She was delighted with the response: “Second class ever given during a January break at Oberlin—it was a charm—I demanded commitment and started to learn how to put love and teaching together.”
She gave the Oberlin class again the following year with the same satisfying results. Anne had found that she could pass on much of what she had learned the hard way; now it was her turn to teach students “what to leave out.”
[To Lois Ames]
14 Black Oak Road
Tuesday, fan 11th, 1969
Dear Lois,
This is in between (I think) calls from you. It is nine at night. I have something to say. You are so valuable. You shine out. You are a magic star. You are a body of blood made beautiful.
If I threaten you with anger you do not shut off your lips. No, you stay right there on the phone. I can not even imagine enough anger for your love. I can not even imagine enough love for your friendship. You are gentle. You do not put me in chains—even when I read your journal you do not lock the lock. We are like two apples in a wooden bowl, wishing the best for each other. We are like two eyes, hoping to see the same way (Kayo is always saying … “focus, Anne, your left eye is going the other way”). And it does. I don’t always focus. It upsets Joy too. Linda seldom. I speak to you of eyes and yet it is friendship that I think of. Lois, we are friends! How thirsty I am for that. How you feed me. How I admire and yet, sit back and adore you for your good friendship toward me. We’re “gals” together. Not quite alone. Not ever alone. Yet!!!
Death troubles me and I speak to you of it. You do not stir from friendship. You are there, listening. Sometimes I feel that I come to you out of hell and you offer me milk.
NOTHING IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU.
Lois, come back every day for I’ll come back for you.
Love,
Anne
Love Poems came out on February 13, 1969. In April she won the long-coveted Guggenheim Fellowship, and used the grant to complete her play Mercy Street. Spending April to August on staged readings and rewrites, she traveled back and forth to the American Place Theater in New York City. Lois Ames went with her; they lived at the Algonquin Hotel in between rehearsals and writing sessions. Anne was finally to see her words on stage in the off-Broadway production in October.
[To Wynn Handman
Director, American Place Theater]
[14 Black Oak Road]
April 15, 1969
Dear Wynn,
Here is the beginning of the Second Act going through the remembrance scene and the first section of the show. If you can piece it all together with the other rewrites, it is the whole second act. I don’t know how original or expanded this new version is. After all, one can expand forever, and to write unconsciously is not difficult for me … still there were things that I like that I wrote before that I have kept. I will have to see how they play. As I said on the phone, the names of the Witnesses, that is the name[s] Charity and Backbiter, are something I’ve held on to despite Chuck’s [Charles Maryan, director of Mercy Street] protestations. I don’t think they’re ever called that in the play as you hear it, so it makes little difference at this point. They come directly from “consorting with angels,” that is, “one with an ear in his hand … one chewing a star … a people apart, performing God’s function.” I’ve told Chuck that the play could start with the poem “Consorting With Angels” [LD] but he feels—and this time I think he’s right—that she ought to have a healthier attitude at the beginning of the play.
I’m so pleased you like what I have done. When I come up to New York for the long week, I will bring a friend [Lois Ames] along as companion and advisor. She is also my biographer, but the reason I bring her is that New York frightens me to death. It’s that old “I’m just a country girl” line again.
Last night I dreamt that I saw the play and that Daisy was too old with wrinkles and large gestures and a little drunk, and I finally said to her, “You can’t be Daisy. You’ve had too much to drink.” And today as I dictate this to my secretary I am having a whiskey and water … whatever it all means. Yesterday, my biographer said “who will play you?” And I said, “Daisy’s not me. I never broke his Goddamn clock.”
I hope you like this rewrite, too.
Best wishes,
While in New York City to work on Mercy Street, Anne met her match in flamboyance. Brian Sweeney, an Australian businessman, had arrived in San Francisco earlier that year, enquiring of the customs agent: “Is Anne Sexton still alive?” He made his way across the country, seeking out anyone who could lead him to “Sexton.” When they finally met, a boisterous friendship bloomed. During the time she worked with the American Place Theater, Sweeney filled her room at the Algonquin with yellow roses, and pampered her with caviar and Dom Perignon suppers at La Cote Basque. He bought up her books in all the New York bookstores and then complained to her publishers that New York City had “run out of Sexton.” Each time they entered a taxi, he insisted on introducing her to the cabbie, emphasizing to the driver that his cargo was precious. Although their flirtation was to remain platonic, Anne was inspired to write the love poem “Sweeney” [BF] in. tribute to her friend. Over the years cables, transoceanic telephone calls, and letters passed between two high spirits who were never to meet again.
[To Brian Sweeney,
telegram]
May 13, 1969
WRITTEN A POEM THAT STARTS MY SWEENEY, MR. ELIOT
SEXTON
Joan Sexton, Kayo’s sister, had remarried in May. Six days after the ceremony, while honeymooning, she was killed in a car accident. The news of her death came to Anne in New York, at the Algonquin Hotel.
[To Brian Sweeney]
14 Black Oak Road
May 16, 1969
Dearest Sweeney,
I have taken great liberty with what you say to me and what you have told me. I fear you will not like what I have done to you. I pray that you will like that I celebrate you!! I don’t mention that life is just an overture although I know you would want me to.
I tried to call you but you had gone to Ireland. I am in despair over my sister-in-law. We were very close. Mary [Meme] is my cleaning lady. She is practically illiterate. She doesn’t even know I wrote a play. No news either on whether they’ll produce it, but it’s getting more religious, and I think they will. Let me know how you like the poem.
Love,
Anne
Yes Sweeney—I miss you!
[To Linda Gray Sexton
Warner, New Hampshire]
[14 Black Oak Road]
Thuseday [sic], July 3rd, 1969
> Dear Linda Pie,
Please excuse this typewriter. I’m not too good at it.
I’m sorry you’re so sort of homesick, sweetheart, god damn it. I used to get so homesick at camp and god damn it I remember how it feels. I’m sorry too, that I didn’t write sooner. I have been so lonely … too lonely to write I guess. I like calling better because then you’re right there. I know a letter from me isn’t as good as one from Kenny [Linda’s boyfriend], but I can’t do a thing about that. Believe it or not you’re going to love me a lot longer than you’ll love him. Even if I say my mother was mean, I still love her and anyhow she wasn’t that mean. I exaggerate everything I fear.
I had the packing taken off my teeth today. Only to have him say the gums weren’t healed and put more back on. It has been very painful and without the packing the teeth look awful, huge and sticking Way out. The gum is way up high and these funny looking teeth protrude forward. Gross!
We had spaghetti two nights this week. Nana came to dinner Sunday (cold lobster) and monday (spaghetti). Ed [Joan Sexton’s widower] is coming to Nana’s for the weekend. I don’t look forward to seeing him. He simply reminds me of the wedding and the sudden violent death. It feels like he took her away to death. I say feels, because it is only an irrational thought, a feeling, not a fact. Still, see him we will and nothing can stop it … Don’t worry, I’ll be nice to him.
Daddy and I think that we can’t adopt Sherlock. Although he is certainly a lovable and cuddly dog it just isn’t in the cards. I love him. One time when Joy was visiting Lorna we sat and had coffee with Liz and Sherlock curled up in my lap. He’s so cute … But Penny would be too jealous. It was different with Gidget. Gidget, after all, was Penny’s puppy and you are never jealous of your own child/dog. I like Sherlock, especially because he is a runt … I like runts.
Earlier this week I had a heart-to-heart talk with Judy [Kumin, Maxine’s younger daughter]. She advising me on what it’s like to be a young girl and me telling her about possibly you wanting to go on the pill for birth-control reasons … Naturally I didn’t go into the specifics of you and Kenny, but I did value her advice. Seeing she is on the pill and is a little older and wiser than you are (and yet younger and more hip than I am), I thought she might have some wise words … And she did. Today she brought in a poem she wrote to you. It doesn’t say it’s to you but I guessed from the poem. It’s a good poem and I told her to send or give it to you. I think you’ll like it although you may resent the message. The main message is that it’s a trap. Nevermind me telling you what it says. I just called Judy and she said I could send it to you … She said she’s worried that you’ll say it’s none of her business. I said to her “Do you think she’ll be angry with me for talking about it with you?” She said “Well, we’re too good friends for her to mind too much.” I hope you don’t, bobolink. It’s just that I have no one to go to for advice. Hardly Daddy, who thinks you should never go on the pill, even for cramps “You suffered with cramps, Anne, so let her. Letting her go on the pill is giving her a license to steal.” “But Kayo,” I answered, “a relationship between a boy and a girl who are in love, no matter what they do, is not stealing.” “But a nice girl wouldn’t do that!” “Kayo, a nice girl is one who is kind to people and loves people.” “You’re too god damned liberal”