Anne Sexton at home reading Wanting to Die

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Love love love her voice.

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.

Anne was so beautiful. And even though her poem is sad and dark, she reads it with so much life. There's even a hint of happiness in her voice. Could that be a telltale sign? For me, I've struggled with depression all my life. When I read my poetry, you can hear my exhaustion. I'm almost 60, and life has worn me out...

She spoke of death romantically. 

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

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

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

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.

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

she portrayed death utterly warm and profound

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.

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

I have always adored Anne & her work.