elegant Anne

If only I looked like this when writing. If only I had a typewriter! On reflection one might wonder whether the typewriter may be due for a come-back - if only they word-processed...

In fact, a wise old priest told Anne Sexton, not long before her suicide: "God is in your typewriter."

I think the priest was right; but, however glamorous and lovely, Sexton could probably not be classified as really happy. She did her best, like all of us. She made an Elegant Effort. Afflicted by terrible mental problems & health problems, as well as the usual life problems, she wrote wrote wrote. She wrote through everything. She struggled in the biggest way and it is all there on paper for us to read. Her poems are elegant too, but not in a decorous way. They laid her bare. Instead of being embarrassing, for the most part in Sexton - and this can come as a surprise to me every time I go a couple of years without opening her book, and then open it again - they're elegant. She never lost her poise.