Anne Sexton is a brave and impressive poet who has had a tremendous impact on the women of her era. Her poetry is passionate, effective, and at times a bit disturbing. She writes mostly based on her emotions since she encountered many different ones throughout her life. She had an alcoholic father and a mother who was too worried about work to be a family oriented mother. Sexton’s nonexistent parents led her to many nights of loneliness. Soon her loneliness led to her depression which lasted a long period of time. Much of her poetry reflects her depression since it was prescribed as a remedy for her suffering. The era of Sexton’s poetry occurred in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. This was a time when audiences wanted poetry to reflect not only the author’s feelings but their own feelings as well. The audience of poetry wanted to be able to relate to the poetry and because of this, Sexton’s poetry strongly appealed to many people (Sexton 6). Due to Sexton’s depression throughout her lifetime and her divorce, she wrote poetry based on her feelings and controversial women’s issues, such as masturbation, abortion, and suicide, and stated her opinions by redefining the boundaries of poetry.
Anne Sexton was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1928 and spent most of her life near Boston. She was raised in a relaxed middle-class environment, yet she was never at ease with the life that was ahead of her. As a child Sexton had two sisters, but seemed to have grown up as a very lost child. The only person truly close to her heart was her great-aunt, Anna Ladd Dingley or “Nana”. It was assumed by friends of Sexton’s family that her father sexually abused her, but no one has confirmed this statement as a fact. Anne was said to be crazy over boys throughout her childhood which is why she was sent to a boarding school in 1945, Rogers Hall; but was not a very concentrated on her school work. When her Nana was hospitalized her anxiety and depression began (Wagner). She eloped with...