A Poem for a Thursday #312

Anne Sexton was born in Massachusetts in 1928. Sexton suffered from bipolar disorder and started writing after her therapist suggested that she do so. Her poetry is described as confessional due to the personal, emotional content. Sexton battled mental health issues her whole life and attempted suicide multiple times. She eventually died by suicide. In 1994, her daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, published an autobiography in which she stated that she had been sexually abused by her mother. That is obviously a shocking fact to come across while doing a bit of research about Sexton. How do we separate a person’s actions from their beautiful writing? Should we separate them? I loved this poem when I came across it but it is tainted now by my knowledge of the person who wrote it.

By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was 
as tough as hemp and was
no color—no more than
the sand was a color and 
we had worn our bare feet 
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to  wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while 
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and 
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like 
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.

I Remember 
Anne Sexton