READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006

If you haven’t done so already, please read the following poems from The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton:

Introductory Essay by Maxine Kumin, "How It Was," p. xix
"You, Doctor Martin," p. 3
"Music Swims Back to Me," p. 6
"Said the Poet to the Analyst," p. 12
"Her Kind," p. 15
"Elegy in the Classroom," p. 32
"For John, who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further," p. 34
"The Double Image," p. 35
"The Division of Parts," p. 42
"The Truth the Dead Know," p. 49
"All My Pretty Ones," p. 49
"To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph," p. 53
"The Starry Night," p. 53
"The Operation," p. 56
"The Abortion," p. 61
"With Mercy for the Greedy," p. 62
"The Fortress," p. 66
"Flee on Your Donkey," p. 97
"Sylvia's Death," p. 126
"Menstruation at Forty," p. 137
"Wanting to Die," p. 142
"Little Girl, My String Bean," p. 145
"Live," p. 167
"For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," p. 189
"The Break," p. 190
"Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator," p. 198
"Eighteen Days Without You," p. 265
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," p. 224
"Rumpelstiltskin," p. 233
"Cinderella," p. 255
"Briar Rose," p. 290
"Rats Live on No Evil Star," p. 359
"The Furies," p. 363

Please read the following materials:

Privacy Lessons, by Molly Peacock, from Creative Nonfiction, No. 17 (2001), pp. 67-83.

The Barfly Ought To Sing, by Anne Sexton (on Sylvia Plath's suicide). (From No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews, and Prose -- Anne Sexton, edited by Steven E. Colburn, University of Michigan Press, 1985).

Interview with Anne Sexton, by Patricia Marx. (From No Evil Star).

The following materials are full-text articles which can be located via Project Muse, in the USD Library Research Databases. To access the articles, Click Here to go to USD's library page, click to the Research Databases link in the right column, and then type in Project Muse in the Search by Database prompt. (If you are working off-campus, note that you will be prompted for your Network ID and Password prior to being given access to the Research Databases). Once in Project Muse, you can search for the articles using title or author's last name, etc. The articles are available in both HTML and PDF format:

"'My Sweeney, Mr. Eliot': Anne Sexton and the 'Impersonal Theory of Poetry'," by Joanna Gill, in Journal of Modern Literature, 27.1/2 (Fall 2003), pp. 36-56.

"Public Dreams: Berryman, Celebrity, and the Culture of Confession," by David Haven Blake, in American Literary History, 13.4 (2001) pp. 716-736.

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Here are some questions that will ideally provide fodder for our discussions of Sexton, and hopefully help structure/guide your initial readings of Sexton and the related articles:

1. Anne Sexton is oftentimes considered the most quintessentially “confessional” of the confessional poets. Based on our ongoing discussions and readings regarding “confessional” poetry, do you agree or disagree with this assessment, and why?

2. Comparatively speaking, Anne Sexton was largely a self-taught poet (although she did take classes, workshops, and was mentored by a number of significant poets), and critics have, on occasions, taken her to task (particularly in some of her later work) for what has been viewed as a more slippery and less-well-honed approach to poetic craft and technique. Do you agree or disagree with this criticism, and how do you support your opinions in this regard? Are there possibly ways in which Sexton’s relative lack of formal education/training might be viewed as an asset for her? Also, do you agree or disagree with Joanna Gill’s arguments (article assigned above) regarding Sexton’s later work?

3. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath are frequently lumped together in the same breath in any discussion of mid-century, American women “confessional” poets, yet in many respects they are, stylistically speaking, very different types of poets. Discuss the ways in which these poets are very different from each other. At the same time, are there ways in which certain similarities between the two can be drawn, accounting for why they are so often grouped/mentioned together?

4. It has been suggested that in her poems, Anne Sexton always plays the “gender card” in ways that are simultaneously abject, disconcerting, and empowering. Discuss the ways in which Sexton plays or plies her own gender/femininity within her poems and to what effect.

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Here is your memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for the round of blog posts due on Monday, September 25, 2006:

Describe a moment of utter depression. Sometimes the gods conspire against us. Have you ever felt so down and out that there seemed to be an absence of all hope? Was it a series of events, bad luck, or things brought on by character flaws that required remedy.

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Don’t forget that your first modeling poem/assignment will be due on Tuesday, October 3, 2006.

Your assignment will be to write a poem in the style of one of the “confessional” poets discussed so far in class. Plath and Sexton will probably be your best bets at this juncture as we will have discussed their work in the most detail so far. (We will be returning to Lowell in more depth in another few weeks, so you will have your chance to do a model based on Lowell if you wish for the second modeling assignment.)

As examples of poems modeled on other poets, we have looked at Amy Gerstler’s poem, “The Luna Moth,” written in the style of (and dedicated to) Elizabeth Bishop. We’ve also looked at Robert Lowell’s poem, “Skunk Hour,” modeled after Bishop’s “The Armadillo” (and also dedicated to Bishop, and vice versa). Finally, Ted Hughes’ poem “Red” certainly echoes some of Plath’s imagery and use of color as an elegiac homage.

In addition to your modeled poem, you will need to write a 500-word discussion of the ways in which you have specifically attempted to imitate stylistic traits (subject/theme; voice/diction/tone; imagery (colors, symbols, styles of simile/metaphor); rhyme/rhythm/form/structure) in the poet/poem upon which you’ve modeled your poem.

Please bring a hard copy of your assignment to class on the due date, and also go ahead and post the assignment to your blog as well, because I think it will be fun/helpful/interesting for everyone to get to take a look at the models and style discussions as time allows.