Anne Sexton at home reading Wanting to Die

[@johnwhiting5747]

As a 65 year old man who lost my mother to suicide in 1965, this poem is shatteringly sad. As a 13 year old boy, finding my mother's corpse on that hot, August morning, made me think why this Sexton poem was always near my mother, even now, over 50 years later, I still grieve.

[@asong4thedead]

I'm so sorry.

[@superlune960]

😢

[@MrKrisstain]

Reading that comment caused me physical pain.

[@ohkayjkay]

I’m sorry for your loss. Wishing you more happy days than any other🍁

[@wyattcarlyle2500]

I, too, lost my mother to suicide when I was 15. I found her lying out there in the cold grass. I thought she was watching stars, but she wasn’t, not those stars at least. It was Christmas night and nothing has ever been the same. I barely talk about it, but you and I have something in common. Nothing can undo what that does to you, so we must live with it. Day after day everyone asks us if we’re okay. They think we’ll just get better one day-forget something like that. I am so sorry for your loss, as someone who has been there in your shoes I am so sorry.

[@thecampercook]

I love Anne Sexton's poetry so much. I never even realized I could get on KZbin and actually HEAR her read her own poetry. Holy Hannah... Its like making love to my mind!

[@165-i8s]

Yeah baby how you been

[@thunderbirb7700]

.....leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love, whatever it was, an infection.❤

[@moniqueocanas79]

"But suicides have a special language, like carpenters-they want to know which tools-they never ask, 'why build?'" Brilliance.

[@bluetree9156]

Monique Ocanas yes....so gelousy ... as word... so love as word... and depression to...The world is a generalist but never who realy loves... It all happend course not feel understood and understending is damn rare... There are buterflyes outside many .. colors.. . And some not fly togheder.... Unique is never doubele... even using same name... :)

[@rmarcosdelarua740]

Amazing.....

[@calamityj3634]

Sextons stuff is visceral and real. I think she gets overlooked a little because of her being a contemporary of Plath and having a similar confessional and often very dark personal voice in her work . But theres an irony and sardonic playfulness that I personally think Is sometimes seems missing in Plath . Sexton is unique original and I love her poems . Thanks for posting this

[@Wowzersdude-k5c]

I almost like Sexton more than Plath (though I do like them both).

[@mattmammone2338]

Her poetry is like Francis Bacon's painting. It doesn't rhyme yet has a flow that is musical. Like her work, Bacon painted in semi abstractions, creating imagery that will dredge up a primal human fear. Her works do that perfectly. He poems are to that medium what punk rock is to music. Raw and unapologetic.

[@aaronying4989]

Yea I really liked her stuff but she’s seen as Sylvia Plath’s “little sister”. But Sexton’s poems I found so magical and compelling. Some even more so than Plath.

[@dove_11111]

she’s much better than Plath, imo

[@MaraMorrigan]

​@@aaronying4989 Plath was hugely influenced by Sexton's first two collections and changed her work into a far more confessional vein which shaped her best poetry. Rage at a philandering husband who'd left her for his beautiful mistress really concentrated this too. Thankfully, unlike the destructive Sylvia (tearer & burner of manuscripts), Hughes saw so much merit in these poems that he coaxed them into print despite the poor light it would show him in. Without Sexton, we wouldn't have the Plath of 'Ariel'.

[@fluffypiranha77]

For anyone who has ever been diagnosed with severe depression, this is the truest, most accurate, most faithful of poems.

[@NotSoLiberal]

No

[@adamferencszi797]

@@NotSoLiberal yes

[@NotSoLiberal]

@@adamferencszi797 Absolutely not. Sheep

[@adamferencszi797]

@@NotSoLiberal you're the only sheep here. Lol

[@Inbaroush]

I think so too.

[@hiitsren]

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember. I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage. Then the almost unnameable lust returns. Even then I have nothing against life. I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun. But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic. In this way, heavy and thoughtful, warmer than oil or water, I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole. I did not think of my body at needle point. Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone. Suicides have already betrayed the body. Still-born, they don’t always die, but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet that even children would look on and smile. To thrust all that life under your tongue!- that, all by itself, becomes a passion. Death’s a sad bone; bruised, you’d say, and yet she waits for me, year after year, to so delicately undo an old wound, to empty my breath from its bad prison. Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet, raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon, leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss, leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love whatever it was, an infection.

[@hollirossmolly5132]

Love whatever it was , an infection. That one got me. I turned several ppl on to this piece. The poem is so powerful it is scary for us the ones wanting to die.

[@Yaztastic]

Love love love her voice.

[@mendagy]

I know, right?! That sonorous, gravelly growl. I could listen it forever!!

[@davidzinn6718]

I wonder if her daughter loved her voice....

[@mattmammone2338]

I love it as a musician. I love her readings set to rock instrumentals. I recorded some music in my studio using her voice

[@mysteryman2628]

@@davidzinn6718 in Linda Sexton (Anne’s first daughter)’s memoir, she mentioned that she loved/envied her mother’s voice, eyes, and figure.

[@Sad_Bumper_Sticker]

@@mysteryman2628Revealed tapes confirmed she seg*ually molested her daughter. Since I found out I still recognise her craft as a writer but she repulses me as a human.

[@Marymm2262]

Morrissey showed this at his show last week,and to me it perfectly represents how it feels to be suicidal...and it made me feel very happy that my battle with depression is over

[@TheLisergicQueen]

Im glad you are a different person now, more strong and able to leave "the beast" behind ur back (thats how i call depression, its like a parasite that eat and corrupt ur mind) i feel like its very hard sometimes fight against it! But it makes me feel good when i hear of somebody who win against depression...theres still hope for me too, after all..:)

[@Marymm2262]

I know it doesn't seem like it now, but you'll get through it! and you'll be a stronger, happier person for it I promise :)

[@MissBooful]

The Lorna Life I've just come home from the Sydney show. I was taken aback by this piece.

[@user-Arifkhan1714]

The Lorna Life ss

[@ohkayjkay]

@@TheLisergicQueen @Lorna Molloy Grow through what you go through❤️ Wishing you both nothing but lots happiness

[@MsThebeMoon]

I don't know what took me so long to get around to youtubing Anne Sexton and Plath. I loved them both, though I had to stop reading their poetry after so many years, or only in rare small dosages, especially Plath. So sad for Anne Sexton because she ended her book "Live or Die" with such a wonderfully self-empowering poem with the last line: "I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.” But as it is with many who suffer from depression, is that it does tend to cycle.

[@sofalvarez]

Beautiful words.

[@valleyofthedolls]

sometimes you feel so hopeful and normal but most of the time it’s the complete opposite

[@kaleighp7723]

I remember Anne’s voice and words mesmerized me and hit me so hard when I had just turned 17. Years later I still find myself coming back to her work.

[@hmslf]

that look on her face after she's formulated those last three lines, it's devastating

[@nyxxie023]

She spoke of death romantically.

[@MrSoullicker]

And do you speak of life romanticly

[@adamferencszi797]

@@MrSoullicker nope. There isn't anything romantic about life. It's free. It gives itself freely. It's like a tavern wench. It's everywhere. Life is nothing more than a mere fille de joie. It's not really wanted. You get the last crumbs. You get it because your body urges you to. But death. Death is a beauty. Death is the true apple of the eye. It's elusive. It plays hard to get..it's hard to come by it in a clean way and in the end you will only seize it through macabre methods. A bullet, a noose, a nonstop train. Because death is hard to come by even though so many people who dread it end up dying. But a pure and dignified death- a painless one. That's hard to get. It's illegal. It's banned. It's kept away from you and only given to the terminally ill at best because society and the government still haven't had their last squeeze of your productive juice. Everyone forces you to keep on living because death is taboo. Society expects you to live. If not out of greed, it's out of delusion and self fulfillment - people preventing others self deletion only to keep their own self righteous conscience at peace. Death is the true romance. Life. Meh Anyone can be born. It's overrated. It just takes an egg and a sperm. It can be tempered with. In vitro. It doesn't even require romance. Just fertilization. It doesn't require self will or consent because boom before you know it you're out of the womb and brought to live in Afghanistan or El Salvador. Or Ukraine. Or Alabama. Life is just a call girl you end up staying with because you weren't lucky to catch the others. It's a matter of luck. Lucky if you get the pretty one. Screwed if you get the rest. It takes more courage and self restraint to die than to keep breathing and carry on living. So, my dear friend. Of course no one will speak romantically of life. Because it's the unwanted and unasked for gift you got when they almost forgot your birthday. And you just suck it up and say ok thank you. But you hunger for the real gift in solitude. And have to pretend you don't in public. Life is the marriage that grows stale from the get go. But death. It's mysterious. It's unknown. Untamed.

[@mattmammone2338]

I know it is hard for many to understand s*icidal people. But when you don't fear death, and suffer depression life is often a chore.

[@aphyTTR]

Such is the allure of suicide

[@FidaMohammadMelancholia]

if I were talented I could've wrote this exactly the same way she wrote it. it's just when I hear her reading these lines, it touches a part of me that I feel but yet I can't explain. I fell for her the moment I read a letter written by her to someone, I forgot who that person was, but again, in that letter she spoke the words I lost, you see I can't even explain myself in words, and the feelings are tearing me inside. anyway, every time I read her or hear her, I feel reassured, it's because it's like I finally found the words to speak with them to myself.

[@bluetree9156]

Fida' Mohammad ❤

[@Laurisa718]

What a beautiful woman, and I love her poem. I've got to order her books, and read more about her.

[@belleguimaraess]

There is something so magnetic about her, I can't explain

[@cnx301]

+belleguimaraess I know exactly what you mean. She touched me in ways I could never imagine before.

[@didostempest2966]

Scorpio magic I suppose 🦂🌙

[@leoamaya1818]

I have always adored Anne & her work.

[@lolah3838]

Some of my favorite poems were written by this extraordinary woman.

[@nicollevanderbilt3797]

Like carpenters....oh my god that line alone just wow, I'm lost for words

[@woodynightshade2285]

I remember writing a paper about this poem, for a college English class. I can't remember what my thesis was, but I think I aced it, with whatever I said about it. I remember how appealing the poem was, to my naturally melancholic disposition. It truly does add something, hearing it in Sexton's own voice.

[@moniqueocanas79]

My discovery of her was Peter Gabriel's 'Mercy Street'...like most :) Then I noticed your lovely post and became hooked. A truly unorthodox poet. Thanks!

[@kellymiller3432]

she felt good reading this, she felt heard, understood.

[@dars5229]

I dunno. That look after saying "the love, whatever it was, an infection." She seemed as sad to say it as she was to write it.

[@teargarden]

"and a love, whatever it was, an infection."

[@Chloe_xoxo_123]

the* love, I think?

[@MrInterestingthings]

Wow, we have film of her reading. How down to earth ,matter of fact she is. No more grim than most but her lines speak for ages!

[@reidx512]

I LOVE HER..................... WISH I COULD BE SO HONEST WITH MYSELF.....

[@aphyTTR]

I know this comment section is filled with people quoting her poem and I am no different, but the sheer elequence and pinpoint accuracy of death being a reliever of pain, the untying of a knot is something I can only wish to have written as a creative stotyteller. It is the great comforter, as the only pain in death is caused by the body as reactions to being alive. Death undoes everything. Not just hard work, but a hard trodden soul.

[@timhrklittimothyherrickvid169]

she waits for me to so delicately undo an old wound. such a great poet, I have to reread the Complete Sexton

[@Idyllgreen]

so good. what a voice!

[@warumsiehtmanjetztdenalias]

matt haig's books inspired me to get into poetry and man i am so grateful for that

[@likeastar]

Goosebumps.

[@murilowerner6223]

I don't like to call that a "severe depression", just a state of profound sadness which some people inevitably have to face.

[@bluetree9156]

Murilo Werner nice attitude....understending....

[@InCog2020]

I've never heard of Anne Sexton. I'm going to have to check her out.

[@jakethesnake1023]

i've heard this so many times and it still gives me chills everytime. This and Plath reading "November Graveyard" have the same effect on me

[@corentinmarseu536]

"Then the almost unnamable lust returns..." That hits hard

[@michaelball3456]

knees banging together like open mouth laughs and hunched backs with gull wing arms splayed; i always thought this was one of Sexton's best. it has a giggling school girl whisper gossipy love to it. suicide by proxy. and draws that along in chalk mark sidewalk circles with phenomenal word plays and choices. a great writer. she draws you in on this one with kitten kisses and then spins your head off like an exponential merry-go-round banging the sound barrier.

[@googlename8066]

What is remarkable. Despite having children and a husband she found no joy in life. Which is so often the case when people commit suicide. Those looking in can find reasons to live. I know we shouldn’t compare our despair to others, but you can’t help wonder what hope is there for someone like me with even less to live for. There I just wrote a poem.

[@EmersetFarquharson]

She did find joy in life. She knew joy and felt it. She says so in the poem. Depression was the monster in the room of her head, and when it was gone or asleep she found joy in life. Even then I have nothing against life. I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun. But suicides have a special language.

[@BeckyGutierrez-ny9en]

Anne Sexton spoke loudly to me when I discovered her, The Awful Rowing Towards God, was her first collection of poetry I read.

[@luz7975]

I know nothing about Anne Sexton... But this amazing, absolutely beautiful poem HELPS me a lot... to see the suicide from a totally different point of view... It has been a revelation and very, very important for me, because I need to deal with two suicides in my family... And it is so hard!!!... so infinitely sad and so difficult to understand, when a dear one takes such a decision... Thank you, so much!!

[@Noodlehorn]

I'm sorry for your loss. I know what it is like to lose the closest people to you. All the best.

[@ferdinandceline2663]

I'm glad the poem helped you. Since (as most people do) you believe that physical death is the end of ones' existence, what I'm going to say probably won't help you...But, I'm going to try, anyway. My father committed suicide (He was 84, and in constant pain), but it doesn't bother me a bit, because I know I'm going to see him again. I've seen hundreds of testimonials, from people who've been clinically dead, and they all say that they met loved ones, who previously (physically) died. (I mean the testimonials from people who went to heaven, not hell.) I found most (if not all) of the testimonials to be very credible. Plus, I'm fortunate (Many will say unfortunate) enough to believe in God. The bottom line is...There's no harm (and plenty of help) in believing that you're going to see your loved ones again. Even if I'm wrong (I'm not), I'd still better off, being happy, than sad. And I know my father would rather me be happy, than sad.

[@wasteland70]

Ferdinand Celine Are you on the Journey to the End of the Night?

[@andrewcanton3539]

wasteland70 I love Celine. Read Professor Y. Classic.

[@patrickjones7188]

wasteland70 I don't know what happened to my original comment (that inspired your comment). I guess it just wanted to die. It seemed so happy! Oh well, at least I'm smart enough not to have an ego.

[@OliviaSBee]

The last stanza is my favourite of hers ever

[@Anthropophobist]

leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love whatever it was, an infection.

[@Cheesoidhateself]

It wont be today but I excite about my time

[@pennwaterman]

This captures it perfectly.

[@florencialirosi9822]

This is just the perfect beast-poem ....made by a genius...made by a beast.

[@ivxxnative]

Thank you Sadistik

[@yonathanasefaw9001]

This was the most truest most powerful kind of poetry, can't go wrong with that.

[@tattoofthesun]

she's so beautiful in her inflections

[@zenbuddah420]

DARK YEAH. WHERE ARE POETS LIKE THIS NOWADAZE

[@saltyspitoon6693]

They are out there or already dead.

[@toddjacksonpoetry]

I have nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with Anne Sexton in spirit. But she's just SO fkng good she's probably my favorite late 20th C poet.

[@SLASHA__]

Young Legionnaire sampled that opening quote in their song Youth Salute right at the end. It works beautifully.

[@eyedeasneverdie3348]

Sadistik always showing me great poets and writers to look into.

[@josefwaheedo8325]

R eye p

[@nothing2see315]

Sacrifice your gods before your gods sacrifice you

[@marwa605a]

But suicides have a special language -Anne Sexton -

[@expresionliteraria8412]

Anne me inspira a escribir más y más la poesia es una terapia interminable!!!! 🌺

[@coattodidolore9574]

EVERY CELLPHONE GIRL should know ANNE

[@analogasmr]

I don't know why you got so many thumbs down for this. Anne Sexton fans, if it's true then it's true! Don't hate on someone for putting the truth out there.

[@rachelnbrien]

Woah - the last 40 seconds

[@kltanisha]

she has a much deeper voice than i had thought. It’s nice tho

[@PoetryETrain]

Thank you, this has been added to a playlist...

[@iancozens8308]

I wanted to Die once and I know it will come again some day soon !

[@mendagy]

Hope, Ian. I understand, so much. Please hope!!

[@Rodpod]

That boi King Krule brought me here. Its such an interesting and almost hypnotic poem.

[@hughmanatee7657]

Her stance toward death seems more curiosity than depression-like Hamlet’s “undiscovered country.”

[@markbrandus]

An amazing poet, more remarkable because she came off as so normal.

[@nothing2see315]

So if things have only gotten worse since Anne's time, what will the next 50 years have In store for us?

[@dars5229]

What we make of it. I'm not being glib. I've been there too. And survived but still don't know why. The only answer I've found is that life if really does have no meaning, then... fuck it, let's give it one.

[@report2386]

What did she meant by “ unmarked by that voyage”? any answer please

[@dars5229]

Well, poetry is art and art is subjective. So I can only offer my own personal interpretation. Before, she says she walks in her clothes and most days she can't remember. By this I take it she means the dull, repetitive unfeeling nothing of daily life while depressed. Going through the motions. She's not really alive. So to me "unmarked by the voyage" means that simply getting out of bed in the morning is a huge effort, a great struggle to get to a destination, like a voyage. But one hollow and empty that leaves her unchanged and still depressed.

[@aphyTTR]

I think she means that the day, one in which you have the opportunity to undergo life changing experiences in every second, goes by and it doesn't really hit her. Unmarked by the voyage of the day.

[@Sindrasos]

@@aphyTTR Like a ghost wandering through the day; a silent observer.

[@aphyTTR]

@@Sindrasos agree here

[@Riotboy1]

So beautiful.

[@Confusion601]

Here because of MORRISSEY.

[@arielunbound]

Yep, mine too. Gosh, she's brill.

[@yirishblessing]

Она своей поэзией уводит тебя в какие-то тёмные глубины и ты выдергиваешь свою руку, тебя передергивает, не хочешь, жутко страшно.. и если не сумеешь вовремя остановится, то не вернешься.. я возвращаюсь, Энн.

[@mydterry]

Pure brilliance

[@ruyakoman269]

Does anyone know when exactly this was filmed? What year?

[@SavannahChild]

I have written about my multiple suicide attempts in my book: "Suicidal Christians" by Nita Tarr (kindle and paperback). I lay it all bare in the hopes that it will help someone...

[@bluetree9156]

Nita Tarr yes...only persons experiencing these feelings can maybe help others to feel understood.... but reasons are different...

[@magmasunburst9331]

Poetry by people who overcome their mental illness is much more fascinating

[@nothing2see315]

Chemical lobotomy isn't really my thing. I see the world for what it is and I could take drugs to replace the veil but I choose not to.

[@Noodlehorn]

@@nothing2see315 Shush

[@OblivionRaining]

Wow.. speechless..

[@Brian_Spellman]

Anne knew uh-lugar! A William Burroughs quip.

[@KARENK72886]

Thanks! so powerful!

[@Poemsapennyeach]

@Neequu78 No Neequu...she was a VERY bright and creative woman...! who chose to die her way.

[@helpstreettrussed11]

Dedicated to the woman in No.5, performing live next door....

[@badvibes4ever958]

Is this sampled in a song I feel it’s a lofi track ?

[@Noodlehorn]

You don't mean Little Fluffy Clouds do you? It's not her anyway.

[@beandoer4146]

soundcloud.com/user-950733579/sublunary-demo you might mean this

[@Nauei]

@@beandoer4146 I KNEW IT. went to a morrissey concert and he played this video and i'd thought i'd heard this voice clip. king krule sublunary demo.

[@Literarysource]

The window, a story by my own read for you The window, a story by my own,

[@bluetree9156]

Grandious !!

[@SKC977]

Shit dude...everything alright?

[@TheGreatMCL]

I love disillusioned poetry.

[@claudiofiacco8283]

Bella lei....💛💓

[@alexrosales1925]

Sublunary Demo by King Krule

[@jmsdxtr]

Damn. She's hot.

[@davidallen346]

She sounds like me when I was a teenager

[@camilafanmary]

glorious

[@moneyatslander]

Steven Patrick brought me here..

[@seaofclay]

💗

[@mathsolutionsbysomaanddebo8710]

suicide did betray my body!!!!!!!!!!1

[@clivebroadhead4857]

Crikey!

[@lukewiegand9414]

What a babe!

[@iclandgirl]

wow.

[@xargathon]

she looks like Patty Duke

[@josh5868]

Sublunary

[@romarina2687]

She died in a horrible way

[@Noodlehorn]

Most of us do.

[@asong4thedead]

Pretty peaceful probably. As far as suicides go, carbon monoxide is probably the least painful.

[@monzermasri8141]

تقرأ بسرعة زائدة لحد ما .. هذا أيضاً يحصل معي غالباً ..

[@reubenriisager9852]

really gd

[@BrianDornTFP]

Poets tend to get a wee bit graphic (at least the good ones do).

[@brian_nirvana]

i lopve you

[@xzoddik]

sublunary