Anne Sexton: Poet in America (1966 Documentary)

[00:00:02]her kind I have gone out a possessed Witch Haunting the black Air braver at night dreaming evil I have done my hitch over the plane houses liked my life lonely thing twelve fingers out of mind a woman like that is not a woman quite I have been her kind I found the warm caves in the woods fill them with Skillets carvings shelves closets silks innumerable Goods fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves whining rearranging with this alone a woman like that is misunderstood I have in her kind I have ridden in your cart driver waved my nude arms at Villages going by learning the last bright roots Survivor where your flame still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind a woman like that is not ashamed to die I have been her kind any tea presents USA poetry this is a film about the poet Anne Sexton I had a nervous breakdown and after I you know I said oh I kept saying I'm so dumb I can't do anything my mother was a very brilliant woman and my psychiatrist suggested that uh I watch channel two you have an educational uh television there why don't you look at it so I did an I.E Richards was uh explaining the form of Asana and I thought oh so that's a sign so I sat down tried to write one was pretty bad thing and that just turned me on and then I you know turned on and wrote like mad or you know I used to stay up to stay at this desk first it was a card table because I didn't think I was before when I put a desk it was in our dining room then I had no place to work like this lovely clothes I don't think it was a mess we could never entertain papers books everything then I put up some bookshelves and everything was tentative but uh I used to stay here from well every minute that I wasn't taking care of the kids until three in the morning drag upstairs and get up at six take care of the kids working and working and working on a poem that you know was no good of course but I had to learn that one there's one poem that I wrote In was one far in this manuscript that is an old poem that I wouldn't give up and I and it says June let's say that's October everything was it's an old phone and I wouldn't let go of it this one itself in 1958. this is that poem Only now I know how to write it a little bit better it still has the same Simplicity It Was Written in a very simple style but I've it's rather a good defining pull movement what is reality I am a plaster doll I pose with eyes that cut open without landfall or Nightfall upon some shellacked and grinning person eyes that open blue steel and clothes am I approximately an eye magnet transplant I have hair black angel black angel stuffing to comb nylon legs luminous arms and some advertised clothes I live in a doll's house with four chairs a counterfeit table a flat roof and a big front door many have come to such a small Crossroad there is an iron bed life enlarges life takes aim a cardboard floor windows that flash open upon someone's City and little more someone plays with me Plants me in the all-electric kitchen is this what Mrs rumbar said someone pretends with me I'm walled in solid by their noise or puts me upon their straight bed they think I am me they're warmth their warmth is not a friend they fry my mouth for their cups of gin and their stale bread what is reality to this synthetic doll who should smile who should shift gears should spring the doors open in wholesome disorder and have no evidence of Ruin or fears but I would cry rooted into the wall that was once my mother if I could remember how and if I had the tears that's how many that's a long amount of time to but that essentially that was a poem that I saved from them you know and rescued you know out of the chaos of way back then you know although I did get very manic once and they told me I was psychotic in the hospital and I thought that was a riot because I was still me you know I thought psychotic was someplace else but I was still me and I talked to my friend on that they had a little pay phone and then that was MGH actually a ward they have in there and uh I was still me and I used to talk with her and tell her what was going on I'd call my kids and they were at camp and I'd say I want to tell you what we had for lunch today you know so they'd feel in touch with me and what was going on when they saw the OT if you're an occupational therapy room they said what a great crafts room ringing the Bells and this is the way they ring the bells in Bedlam and this is the Bell lady who comes each Tuesday morning to give us a music lesson and because the attendants make you go and because we Mind by Instinct like bees caught in the wrong heart we are the circle of the crazy ladies who sit in the lounge of the mental house and smile at The Smiling woman who passes us each a bell who points at my hand that holds my bell E flat and this is the gray dress next to me who grumbles as if it were special to be old to be old and this is the small hunch Squirrel Girl on the other side of me who picks the hairs over her lip who picks at the hairs over her lip all day and this is how the bills really sound as untroubled and clean as a workable kitchen and this is always my bell responding to my hand the response to the lady who points at me E flat and although we are no better for it they tell you to go and you do and sex and American poet writes I was born in Newton Massachusetts and I spent most of my life on the coast of Maine in the summer or wintering in Wells and Newton and Western all Suburban towns west of Boston my ancestor William Brewster came to America on the Mayflower and sounds like a decent sort of man from what I've read of him my family tree goes back I have lately found to assortments of royalty such as William the Conqueror King Edward III second first King Philip IV of France King Ferdinand of Spain Etc this list amuses me most when I find such notes in the family genealogy as Edwardo sir founded The Knights of the god are married filippa of henault his mistress age 15. Mistress of 15 ah those were the days I was a third and last daughter as a young child I was locked in my room until the age of five after that at school I did not understand the people who were my size or even the larger ones thus i hidden fairy tales and read them daily Like a Prayer Book I did not even like my dolls for they resembled people I wrote some forms in high school but stopped when my mother suggested that I had plagiarized them my mother was brilliant and vital one thought in meeting her that she had written all the first editions in her own Library she collected first editions of course I was unbearable unhappy unreachable and as soon as possible I became boy crazy in fact I looked at 19 with Alfred M Sexton as a matter of interest I'm still married to him I found this somewhat unusual among writers in general fairy tales we all have in common but one marriage seldom Young a thousand doors ago when I was a lonely kid in a big house with four garages and it was summer as long as I could remember I lay on the lawn at night Clover wrinkling under me the wise Stars betting over me my Mother's Window a funnel of yellow heat running out my father's window half shut and I wear sleepers pass and the boards of the house were smooth and white as wax and probably a million leaves sailed on their strange stalks as the Crickets ticked together and I in my brand new body which was not the woman's yet told the Stars my questions and thought God could really see the Heat and the painted light elbows knees streams good night thank you those times at six I lived in a graveyard full of dolls avoiding myself my body the suspect in grotesque house was locked in my room all day behind a gate a prison cell I was the Exile who sat all day in a knot I will speak of the little childhood cruelties being a third child the last given and the last taken of the nightly humiliations when mother undressed me of the life of the daytime locked in my room being The Unwanted the mistake that mother used to keep father from his divorce divorce the romantic's friend Romantics who fly into maps of other countries hips and noses and mountains into Asia or the black forest or caught by 1928 the year of the me by mistake not for divorce but instead the me who refused to suck on breasts she couldn't please the me whose body grew unsurely the me who stepped on the noses of dolls she couldn't break I think of the Dolls so well made so perfectly put together as I pressed them against me kissing their little imaginary mouths I remember their smooth skin those newly delivered the pink skin and the serious China blue eyes they came from a mysterious country without the Pang of birth born quietly and well when I wanted to visit the closet is where I rehearsed my life all day among shoes away from the glare of the bulb in the ceiling away from the bed in the heavy table in the same terrible Rose repeating on the walls I did not question it I hid in the closet as one hides in a tree I grew into it like a root and yet I planned such plans of flight believing I would take my body into the sky dragging it with me like a large bed and although I was unskilled I was sure to get there or at least to move up like an elevator with such dreams storing their energy like a bull I planned my growth in my Womanhood as one choreographed dance I knew that if I waited among shoes I was sure to outgrow them the heavy oxfords the thick execution Reds shoes that lay together like Partners the sneakers thick with Griffin eye wash and then the dresses swinging above me always above me empty and sensible with sashes and puffs with collars and two-inch hems and evil Fortunes in their belts I sat all day stuffing my heart into a shoebox avoiding the precious window as if it were an ugly eye through which birds coughed chained to the healing trees avoiding the wallpaper of the room where tongues bloomed over and over bursting from lips like sea flowers and in this way I waited out the day until my mother the large one came to force me to undress I lay there silently hoarding my small dignity I did not ask about the gate or the closet I did not question the Bedtime ritual wear on the cold bathroom tiles I was spread out daily and examined for Flaws I did not know that my bones those solids those pieces of sculpture would not splinter I did not know the woman I would be you know that blood would bloom in me each month like an exotic flower nor their children two monuments would break from between my legs two cramped girls breathing carelessly each asleep in her tiny Beauty I did not know that my life in the end would run over my mother's like a truck and all that would remain from the year I was six was a small hole in my heart a deaf spot so that I might hear the unsaid more clearly it's terrible it's very sad for my kids I know which isn't really that bad they paint her Pig but just because they're so beautiful I'm very lucky to have those children even though I can get Madam or you know any of that still they wouldn't want to talk they taught me how to be a mother because I hadn't I hadn't had any motherings so I didn't really know they're the good things the big presence of my life so I have to find this today give me a kiss can we kiss across this bridge I love you but I shouldn't have to you've got to make it by yourself yeah I know it but I didn't I didn't know she was just joking like that and I wasn't even gonna tell you're supposed to tell me what goes on but I don't have to fix everything you've got to learn to fix it somebody there won't be anything I don't have any mother to call up and say fix everything I know you have me I know my strength okay you know I want to give a party because she's matured instead of giving a party I wrote a poem little girl my string bean my lovely woman my daughter at 11. almost 12.

[00:15:49]is like a garden oh darling born in that sweet birthday suit and having owned it and known it for so long now you must watch High Noon enter noon at ghost hour oh funny little girl this one under a blueberry sky this one how can I say that I've known just what you know and just where you are it's not a strange place this odd home where your face sits in my hand so full of distance so full of its immediate fever summer has seized you as when last month in Amalfi I saw lemons as large as your desk side globe that miniature map of the world and I could mention too the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic buds all engorged or I think even of the orchard next door where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell and once with our backyard I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat oh little girl my string bean how do you grow you grow this way you are too many to eat I hear as in a dream the conversation of the old wives speaking of Womanhood I remember that I heard nothing myself I was alone I waited like a Target let High Noon enter the hour of the ghosts once the Romans believed that noon was the ghost hour and I can believe it too under the startling Sun and someday they will come to you someday men bear to the waist young Romans at noon where they belong with ladders and hammers while no one sleeps but before they enter I will have said your bones are lovely and before their strange hands there was always this hand that formed oh darling let your body in let it tie you in in Comfort what I want to say Linda is that women are born twice if I could have watched you grow as a magical mother might if I could have seen through my magical transparent belly there would have been such ripening Within your embryo the seed taking on its own life clapping the bedpost Bones from the pond thumbs and tombsterious eyes the awfully human head the heart jumping like a puppy the important lungs The Becoming while it becomes as it does now a world of its own a delicate place I say hello to such shakes and knockings and hijinks such music such Sprouts such dancing mad Bears of music such necessary sugar goings on oh little girl my string bee how do you grow you grow this way you are too many to eat what I want to say Linda is that there is nothing in your body that lies all that is new is telling the truth I'm here at somebody else an old tree in the background darling stand still at your door sure of yourself a white stone a good Stone as exceptional as laughter you will strike fire that new thing when I can make a sound like this this is totally a and crazy as it is listen to that voice and with those clumsy words I must try to make it can [Music] bird or I don't mean to sound it's the way I feel really inside [Music] silly I mean I feel ashamed of it either and this damn typewriter all it gives me is words don't do that to me they don't make me cry the way that does makes me cry [Music] I like something I've lost [Music] there's something in there that I've lost and that I can't find [Applause] [Music] the addict sleep Monger death Monger with capsules in my Palms each night eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey I'm the queen of this condition I'm an expert on making the trip and now they say I'm an addict now I ask why why don't you know that I promise to die I'm keeping in practice I'm merely staying in shape pills are a mother but better every color and as good as sour balls I'm on a diet from death yes I admit it has gotten to be a bit of a habit blows eight at a time sucked in the eye hauled Away by the pink the orange the green and the white good nights I'm becoming something of a chemical mixture that's it my supply of tablets has got to last for years and years I like them more than I like me stubborn as hell they won't let go it's a kind of marriage it's a kind of war or plant bombs inside of myself yes I try to kill myself in small amounts an innocuous occupation actually I'm hung up on it but remember I don't make too much noise and frankly no one has to Lug me out and I don't stand there in my winding sheet I'm a little buttercup in my yellow 90 eating my eight loaves in a row and in a certain order as in the laying on of hands or the Black Sacrament it's a ceremony but like any other sport it's full of rules it's like a musical tennis match where my mouth keeps catching the ball then I lie on my altar elevated by the eight chemical kisses what a lay me down this is with the two pink two orange two green two white good nights it's asleep it's asleep you can keep oh live or die but don't poison everything live well that's been here for a long time it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when I made them obscene with my dwarf Hearts doodle the chief ingredient is mutilation and mud day after day mud like a ritual and the baby on the platter cooked but still human cooked also with little maggots sewn onto it maybe by Somebody's Mother the damn [ __ ] even so I kept right on going on a sort of human statement lugging myself as if I were the sawed-off body in the trunk steamer trunk this became a perjury of the Soul it became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked still killed was caught in the first place at Birth like a fish but I played it dressed it up dressed it up like somebody's doll is life something you play and all the time wanting to get rid of it and further everyone yelling at you to shut up and no wonder people don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with a hammer today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer what a bargain there was the sun her yoke moving feverishly tumbling her prize and you realize that she does this daily I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid hadn't known she was an answer God it's a dream lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better a husband straight as a redwood two daughters two sea urchins picking roses off my hackles if I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows nifa mice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes here all along thinking I was a killer anointing myself daily with my little poisons but no I'm an empress and we're an apron my typewriter writes it didn't break the way it warned even crazy I'm as nice as a chocolate bar even with the witch's gymnastics they trust my incalcable city my corruptable bed oh dearest three I make a soft reply the witch comes on and you paint her pink I come with kisses in my hood and the small and the Sun the smart one rolling in my arms so I say live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown despite the warnings the abort the destroy despite the pails of water that waited to drown them to pull them down like stones they came each one had first blowing bubbles the color of cataract blue and fumbling for the tiny tits just last week eight Dalmatians three quarters of a pound lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree I promise to love more if they come because in spite of Cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens I am not what I expected not an Eichmann the poison just didn't take so I won't hang around in my Hospital shift repeating the black mass and all of it I say live live because of the Sun the dream the excitable gift [Music] books by Anne Sexton include to Bedlam and part one published by Houghton Mifflin in 1960 all my pretty ones are the same publisher in 1962 selected poems Oxford University press 1965.

[00:28:43]and the most recent collection live or die to be published by Houghton Mifflin in 1966.

[00:28:50][Music] [Music] this is net the national educational television network