Poetry Project Paper

Using poetry as a creative outlet is used in many therapeutic cases. Anne Sexton was an American poet that struggled with mental illness her entire life and was given the suggestion from a therapist to apply poetry to her life. “After Auschwitz” describes the narrator condemning mankind for having the potential to be wonderful, but chooses to be evil instead. Although Anne Sexton never experienced a concentration camp firsthand, she used the war- time analogy to depict her own opinion of the world. In contrast, “Wanting to Die” expresses Sexton’s personal experience with suicidal thoughts and depression. Both poems have a very similar tone, attitude, and word choice, but are intricately different in subject matter and characteristic.

That being the case, most of Anne’s Sexton’s poems were criticized for being “too open” and very personal. Both “After Auschwitz” and “Wanting to Die” are emotional poems with a lot of personal attitude. For example, “Anger, as black as a hook, overtakes me. Each day, each Nazi took, at 8:00 A.M., a baby and sauteed him for breakfast in his frying pan” (After Auschwitz). Bluntly in the opening of the poem, Sexton reveals anger and builds up the emotion throughout the poem, explaining that man is an abomination. Similarly, “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” (Wanting to Die). This profound imagery is evident in both poems with the explicit examples of the baby being sauteed and the betrayal of suicide, using both sophisticated and simple words. Sexton’s vocabulary is vivid for the reader to imagine, but simple enough to understand. The confessional-style of the poems was Sexton’s primary style, one that is evident in most of her poems.

In contrast, both poems differ in subject matter and characteristic. For example, “After Auschwitz” is about a victim of the famous Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, that has an intense, understable anger toward human-kind’s evil tendencies. “Let man never again raise his teacup...write a book...put on his shoe...raise his eyes on a soft July night” (After Auschwitz). This is similar to biblical-sounding commandments, that man does not deserve God’s forgiveness. However, “Wanting to Die”, is a personal poem about Sexton’s struggle with mental illness, depression, and suicidal thoughts. “Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic” (Wanting to Die). Sexton is expressing her battle with suicidal thoughts with a malicious but, in her mind, fascinating enemy.

Furthermore, there are several similarities and differences in the poems that make them significant and unique. For example, “leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook, and the love, whatever it was, an infection” (Wanting to Die), is an example of Sexton’s idea that death can come quickly, is abrupt, and there will always be unfinished business. However, in “After Auschwitz”,  “Man is evil I say aloud. Man is a flower that should be burnt, I say aloud. Man is a bird full of mud, I say aloud...I say those things aloud”, is revealing Sexton’s opinion that man is a corrupt creature with a voice of betrayal. While similar in tone and mood, the poems differ in what they stand for. The similarities are a distinction of Anne Sexton’s reasons for writing and dark subject matters she tended to lean towards, while the differences are a matter of variance in poem.

Works Cited

"Anne Sexton." Anne Sexton. Web. 3 Mar. 2015. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/sexton/sexton.htm>

Anne Sexton - Anne Sexton Poems - Poem Hunter. "Anne Sexton - Anne Sexton Poems - Poem Hunter." Poemhunter.com. Web. 5 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/anne-sexton/>.

“Anne Sexton : The Poetry Foundation." The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Magazine. Web. 3 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anne-sexton>.

Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 4 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/anne-sexton>.

Sexton, Anne. "After Auschwitz Poem." Poemhunter.com. PoemHunter, 11 Aug. 2010. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-auschwitz/>.

Sexton, Anne. "Wanting to Die." Poetry Foundation. Lynn Melnick. Web. 3 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171275>.