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Anne's poems may unnerve you or make you think about things that make you feel uncomfortable. She wrote about subjects including abortion, adultery, death, masturbation, and other issues important to women. Many of Anne's poems were dark, depressive, and off the wall. Something very common in Anne Sexton's work is the use of metaphors and personification.

Anne Sexton was every definition of woman, seemingly strong, sexy, emotional, contemplative, stressed, and expressive. So many of the poems she wrote express her femininity and feelings. By reading the following poems you will understand her writings but also see how they may be viewed in different perspectives.

SONG FOR A RED NIGHTGOWN

No. Not really red,
but the color of a rose when it bleeds.
It's a lost flamingo,
called somewhere Schiaparelli Pink
but not meaning pink, but blood and
those candy store cinnamon hearts.
It moves like capes in the unflawed
villages in Spain. Meaning a fire
layer and underneath, like a petal,
a sheath of pink, clean as a stone.

So I mean a nightgown of two colors
And of two layers that float from
the shoulders across every zone.
For years the moth has longed for them
but these colors are bounded by silence
and animals, half hidden but browsing.
One could think of feathers and
not know it at all. One could
think of whores and not imagine
the way of a swan. One could imagine the cloth of a bee
and touch its hair and come close.

The bed ravaged by such
sweet sights. The girl is.
The girl drifts up out of
her nightgown and its color.
Her wings are fastened onto
her shoulders like bandages.
The butterfly owns her now.
It covers her and her wounds.
She is not terrified of
begonias or telegrams but
surely this nightgown girl,
this awesome flyer, has not seen
how the moon floats through her
and in between.

THE BREAST

This is the key to it.
This is the key to everything.
Preciously.

I am worse than the gamekeeper's children
picking for dust and bread.
Here I am drumming up perfume.

Let me go down on your carpet,
your straw mattress -- whatever's at hand
because the child in me is dying, dying.

It is not that I am cattle to be eaten.
It is not that I am some sort of street.
But your hands found me like an architect.

Jugful of milk! It was yours years ago
when I lived in the valley of my bones,
bones dumb in the swamp. Little playthings.

A xylophone maybe with skin
stretched over it awkwardly.
Only later did it become something real.

Later I measured my size against movie stars.
I didn't measure up. Something between
my shoulders was there. But never enough.

Sure, there was a meadow,
but no yound men singing the truth.
Nothing to tell truth by.

Ignorant of men I lay next to my sisters
and rising out of the ashes I cried
my sex will be transfixed!

Now I am your mother, your daughter, your brand new thing -- a snail, a nest.
I am alive when your fingers are.

I wear silk -- the cover to uncover --
because silk is what I want you to think of.
But I dislike the cloth. It is too stern.

So tell me anything but track me like a climber
for here is the eye, here is the jewel,
here is the excitement the nipple learns.

I am unbalanced -- but I am not mad with snow.
I am mad the way young girls are mad,
with an offering, an offering...

I burn the way money burns.

Love Poems

This poem talks about a materialistic object, her red nightgown. In this poem, she uses mostly metaphors and strong words to describe this piece of special clothing she also uses personification in not only this poem but many of her poems. She speaks of it like it takes over her and makes her who she is. She puts much importance in this shred of fabric. Why is it that such things are so important? Why have material objects taken place of love in some senses. Anne speaks of this nightgown like it is a person or of such great importance it deserves the respect of a person. Little does she know, this has not made her who she was.

Feminist Perspective

In this poem, Anne speaks of what it is like to be a woman, in a way celebrating the way of women. In this poem, Anne also used metaphors quite often. The name gives it away in a sense but as you read on you can feel what she is saying. She speaks of her body, her image, her comparisons, her feelings. This poem is empowering to women. It speaks of what women think and how they feel. It shows that women have power in who they are.

Anne Sexton 1928 - 1974