ANNE SEXTON FOR JOHN, WHO BEGS ME NOT TO ENQUIRE FURTHER

For John, Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further

by Anne Sexton

Not that it was beautiful,
but that,
in the end,
there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the common
places of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.

And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be,
finally,
an accident of hope.

I tapped my own head;
it was a glass,
an inverted bowl.

It is a small thingto rage in your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you,
or your house
or your kitchen.

And if you turn awaybecause there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.

Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.

This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place,
my dear,
although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all...
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen,
your kitchen,
my face,
your face.

C Anne Sexton

TOUCHED WITH FIRE by KAY REDFIELD JAMISON Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperment

TOUCHED WITH FIRE
Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
By Kay Redfield Jamison C 1993
The Free Press

Focusing on English poets and writers of renown, including a genealogy focus on familial mental illness (though perhaps not diagnosed as contemporary psychiatrists might today then), Kay Redfield Jamison links artistic talent and temperament with Manic Depression - now called Bipolar disease. How many of today's artistic and literary geniuses are too medicated to create, that's what I want to know!

Page 117

"Profound melancholy or the suffering of psychosis can fundamentally change an individual's expectations and beliefs about the nature, duration, and meaning of life, the nature of man, and the fragility and resilience of the human spirit. Many writers, artists, and composers have described the impact of their long periods of depression, how they have struggled or dealt with them, and how they have used them in their work. The influence of pain's domination fills novels, canvases, and musical scores; there is no shortage of portrayals. Poet Anne Sexton, for one, described the importance of using pain in her work: "I, myself, alternate between hiding behind my own hands, protecting myself anyway possible, and this other, this seeing touching other. I guess I mean that creative people must not avoid the pain that they get dealt... Hurt must be examined like a plague."

ANNE SEXTON / THE BLACK ART

from THE COMPLETE POEMS C 1981 by Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr. Houghton Mifflin Company Boston THE BLACK ART 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 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. (Click on the title above to get to a YouTube video of Anne Sexton "rare clips" - not reading this particular poem.

Video expired... removed Oct 2022