CONFESSIONS
The resume - a portrait of a potentially desirable employee - is a standard
kind of profile. The word comes from the French, meaning to "sum up," and
traditionally a resume is a summary of one's educational background and work
experience prepared for a prospective employer. Resumes, as anyone who has
composed one knows, typically follow fairly conventional gUidelines: information
is organized in categories-such as Objective, Education, Experience, and
Activities-with the most important information listed first. An especially creative person, however, may break the ruLes by deviating from the usuaL impersonaL
format and content. It's not surprising that a poet like Anne Sexton, known for
her intense, confessionaL poetry, would produce an unusually revealing resume.
Poetry, unlike the resume, is a medium that is designed to reveal-albeit often
an image that requires the reader to fill in its features.
Anne Sexton's "Resume 1965" includes detaiLs about her life and career
up to that date. "Self in 1958" is a poem she wrote in the year she "started to
write constantLy." The victim of depression and several nervous breakdowns,
Sexton had spent much time in and out of institutions. The photograph by
Arthur Furst was taken the summer before she died, in 1974. Besides the books
mentioned in her resume, Sexton is also the author of Love Poems (1969),
Transformations (1971), The Book of Folly (1972), and The Death Notebooks
(1974). One of her most powerfuL volumes of poetry, The Awful Rowing Toward
Cod (1975), appeared posthumously, and her Complete Poems appeared in
1981.
79
ST,\GING PORTRAITS
Eli"!"
2 PHOTOS
POEM
Confessions
1.
S HXTON, ANNE (
November
9th 1928----).
American poet wri tes:
I was born in Newton, Massachusetts and have s~.1ent most of
wintering
my life on the coast of Maine in the sutmler or:',.in \,lellesley,
Newton and Westota---al1 suburban towns west of Boston.
My
ancestor, Willian Brewster, came to America on the Mayflower
and sounds like a decent sort of mall from what I read of hill.
My family tree goes back, I have lately found, to .saortmeats
of qJJalty such as Willian The Conqueror, Kin, Bdwartl 111,
11, 1, KiDS Phlpid 1V of Prame., King PerdiDand of Spain,
etc.
Tbe list a...ea me moat vben I flad such notes in
the fUlll' genealogy a.aBdwHd 111. lOaDded the Knights of
Anne Sexton, Resume
1965. Since it includes
Married Philtba of Halllauit. his _i.tress ase
her Ufe and career up to
~
1965, Sexton's resurne
of informatioD about my lineage make me smile in. light of my
';,vas most likely written
own puritanical and stifled upbringing.
in that year. We do not
know its purpose (a
grant application? a
80
the Garter,
biographical dictio-
nary?),
nor do we know
Mistress of lSI
Ah, those were the days'
I waa the third and last daughter.
or eYen the lUler ones.
c....·•
see.eeI out of
daily like a Pl'a.,erbook.
Gray Sexton, and is
After that,
at school, I did Dot understand the people who were m, size
if it was ever slJbrnitted
by her daughter, Linda
a young child
I was locked in my room uDtil the age of five.
anywhere. It was discovered an10ng her papers
A8
Such whisps
At home, . . . . ., from it, people
Thus I hid ill f'.llr, tales and read them
AD, book'" closer thaD a person.
I did Dot even like my dolls for they resembled people.
stepped on their faces because the resembled me.
I
I think I
printed here just as she
would have prefered to exist only in a (air, tale whue poeple
originally typed it, with
could change reality the wayan actor changes his
deletions, inserts, and
In total, I can say that I learned nothing in any school that
typos. (From Anne
Sexton: The Last
Summer by Arthur Furst.
Copyright~~'1 2000 by
Arthur Furst)
c~n8tume.
I attended and see no point in mentioning places where my body
sat at a desk and my soul was elsewhere.
I wrote some poems
Anne Sexton, Resume /965
STAGING PORTRAITS
Confessions
in high school but stopped when IlJ mother suggested that I
M, mother .as brilliant and vital.
had plagerized them.
friends thlught of her .. a write~ altbough it
father, A.G. Staplea, who wu
editor.
&
wu only her
small town, Maine newspaper
Hey_thelsa, My mother wu considered to be a
ODe t,,-ulht, in aeetiq ber, that she had
pUll genula.
wrlttea all tbe firat editiona ill her own librar,.
1 " .. ullbearable, unhappy md UIlreaehable and as
I bee..e !>o,-craz,.
Alfred M. sextOll.
to bla.
amODg
Her
Of coarse,
BOal . .
po•• lble,
In fact, I elJloped IItitIx at at••tea with
Aa a _tter of iDtereat I . . atill -.nied
P'. 'i'
X8xJIx 1 baye foUDC! this som.bat lID.II\I&1
writers lD gfJllual.
Palry tale. we aU ban in co__--
but ODr . .rriage, seide..
After I was married I worked as a salesgirl, a fashion
model aad • Ilbraatua.
State New York,
Ul
We lived on a DIaIx fan in Upper
apu'bIeIlt 111 Coobltutate. Nasa (betweeD
a pig fUll and a chicken fU1l).
Into the
!l&YJ
san Prase.leo.
Later:, when _, husband _eat
(Xoreaa Coafllct) we llwd ift DaltillOre ad
111 1954 be got ottt of the Dayy aad we settled
in our first home in NewtOll aad had oar first child, Lillda
and two yeus later a second, Joy.
A few III01ltha after Joy'a
birth I had a seYe~e aerYoa8 Meakdowll (aa they are called)
and . . I caae out of it <a4 if I eYer real1,. cae out of it)
I started to writ. poe.s.
In 1958 I started to write const_t1y aDd then to pUb1lab
in such lII&I&ziaeli . . Harper's, TIle New Yorker. 11IlC Muda. R.eview ,
Partisan Review Bte.
1 "as
~
often told that my poetr,
was too 1beraona.l. too prln.te.
But the art, though it be
suicide or muder, chose. you.
I let it do this and then I
81
STAGING PORTRAITS
lj1'!ii'$i'
2 PHOTOS
POEM
Confessions
let it continue its path, deeper and deeper.
that style.
One might call
I think of it as a no-other-cboice-project.
can't give my Poems someonets face-lifting-job.
won't.
t~ying.
I've even stopped
I just let the poelll8 alone.
iluri:her,I
The critics be damned.
Not
No.
I
that:. I "don't
rewora.
SOlIe poeas take years and hundreds of rewr.'itea before they
have their own sound. own face.
years. of leamiDg to write ad
I reme.ber the long days,
that the tiling I had to fight
most for was thl. certain style.
the PO_
alIUst ~'."".F"
Por pralae or damnation,
itself.
At beat, one hopes to make
something new, a kind of ori,lnal product.
bother to hope, to _lee?
puscmal.
mow,
tltheft:lse, why
ADd m)' neweat poeas ue "en aore
They usually cOIle from a part of me that I don' t
haven't met and won't UDderstand for a couple of yeus.
They kDow things I
dOD It
mow
myself.
After publication of my first books of poems I WaS appointed
a Scholar at The RUcllffe IBstltute for Independent Study for
82
1961-63.
'Ibis brought me in touch with other artists md scholar•
.. • ell as an infonaal el... of poetry that I t1ntgbt to
Radcliffe and Huvard students.
published soon after this puled.
M, second book of
1'08118 was
Some of the painters and
sculptors that met at Radcliffe have lnfluecae.ed my work
in hidden ~-7s.
After that time I was awarded t'he Pirst
Trayelimg Pel10wahip of The American Academy of Art. and Letter8-1963-64.
This openec1 me up eya more.
tin can --being opened up all the time.
I am something of a
I drove *ksx aad walked
throughout EUrope and fell in love with Italy, patticual1y its
costal fishing villages.
In 1964-65 I was awarded a grant
from The Pord Foundation to be in residence with a theatre
Iii
Anne Sexton, Resume /965
STAGING PORTRAITS
Confessions
in Boston.
of course I wrote a !,tay and 1eamed lots about
the theatre and about loving actors and was,
~galn,opened
up
again--tiD can me I
In 1965 Oxford University Vres. in London brought out
my Selected Pg!IIf
in the UK aDd I .... at that tiae, elected
a Pellow of The loyal Society of Literature ill Londt.'1l.
lIIaybe I'," COIle SOIl. sort of
a 1ittle
~
royal like my
So
circle, back . .aia to somethlag
~
111 and hla mistres8 (age 151)
But perhaps it's aU a fairy tale and I'. still locked in
I
. , roo..
CUI
onl, .peak.
frOli
my
rOOll,
1IJ' typewriter,
to sa, I aa just completing a third book of PO"" ••itiD,
for some0ll8 to produce my play, to ei thu kill it of bring
it forth, and _
poet~y
trying myself
Oft
a little J)roae.
Bat
is my love, my postmark, my hands, . , kitchen. my fAce •
........•.
PRINCIPAL WORKSI
To Bed1. . aDd Part Way BaCk 1960, All
My Pretty ODea 1962, Selected Poeu 1964,
Lt•• or Die,
forthc01IlD8 •
.......•...•...
ABttn'1
The MlDDeaota ReT!ew 1961, Bpocll,
~all
1962, Altaatic
xb HOY. 1962, The M. Yorker April 2?tb 1963, The Nation Feb. 23,
1963, TIle Reporte~ J-~;3t 1963, Sewume Revl. s . - u 1963,
-<
TIle New Yo~k Tille. April 28th 1963, 'l11e Critical Quuerly,
(&lglaad) SlI_er 1964, Sprlq 1965; London Tilles Marcb 11, 1965,
The
Lonc1oD Myaz iDe March 1964.
83
Anne Sexton) Self in /958
STAGING PORTRAITS
Confessions
~
Arthur Furst, Anne Sexton, Summer 1974. Arthur Furst is a prominent New England
photographer who has done portraits of many well-known American authors. He
photographed Sexton in the spring and summer of 1974, iust a few months before she
took her own life. (From Anne Sexton: The Last Summer by Arthur Furst. Copyright
\¢; 2000 by Arthur Furst)
Anne Sexton
~
Anne Sexton, Self in 1958.
From Sexton's third collection
SELFINI958
of poems, Live or Die (1966),
which won the Pulitzer Prize.
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 close.
Am I approximately an I. Magnin 1 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 on someone's city,
and little more.
Someone plays with me,
plants me in the all-electric kitchen,
Is this what Mrs. Rombauer 2 said?
I
2
I Magnin: A luxurious department store.
Mrs. Rombauer: Irma Rombauer (1877-1962), author of the famous cookbook Joy ofCooking.
85
STAGING PORTRAITS
RESUME
PHOTO 2
ED
Confessions
Someone pretends with me I am walled in solid by their noiseor puts me upon their straight bed.
They think I am me!
Their warmth? Their warmth is not a friend!
They pry 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 a wholesome disorder,
and have no evidence of ruin or fears?
But I would cry,
Think about Sexton's use of
into the wall that
rooted
the word "synthetic" here. If you
was
once
my mother,
consult a dictionary, you will find
if I could remember how
that the word has a number of
meanings, some of them philoand if I had the tears.
86
sophical or technical. The word
is used in chemistry, for example, to refer to something produced by a chemical process to
resemble something natural
(synthetic rubber"). By extension, the term has also come to
mean artificial, not real or genuine. In what sense is a doll synthetic? How does Sexton suggest the word can apply to her
real self as well as to a doll?
What other words and images
in the poem reinforce the concept of a synthetic self?
COMMENT
"'n1(,~ inbmate details divulged in
Sexton's
poetry enchi3nted or repell.~d with equal
sion. In addition to
HH;
pas~
strong feelings Anne~$
work arouscd~ there was the undeniable fact of
ht?:f physical beauty. f'''fer pn~sence on the platform dazzLed "'lith its staginess, its props of
vl/ater glass, cigarettes, and ashtr;,~y. She used
pregnant pauses; husky vvhispers~ pseudo-
shouts to calculated effect. A Sexton audience
might hiSS its dispf.eaStH·c or deliver
d
s'tanding
ovation. It did not dOZf~ off during a reJrJing.)l
I
i
!
II
-
Maxine Kumin, poet
Arthur Furst, Two photographs of Anne Sexton
STAGING PORTRAITS
Confessions
Two photographs. Images of the younger and older
Sexton confront each other on the mantel. (From
Anne Sexton: The Last Summer by Arthur Furst.
Copyright ~) 2000 by Arthur Furst)
COMMENT
HI realize now that while we were taking photographs of her, Anne
was preparing for her imminent death. She was organizing her
estate and image, determining who would be her biographer and
who would handle her writings, and she wanted me to be her
'authorized' photographer.... Like an Egyptian queen, she was
planning for the afterlife."
- Arthur Furst, photographer
STAGING PORTRAITS
RESUME
2 PHOTOS
POEM
Confessions
•
1111111111
~J1
ESSi\G E
What information does
Sexton include in "Resume
1965" that you would
expect to find in a standard
resume? What information
do you find unexpected?
Whom does she app.ear to
be writing the resume for?
Why might she have had to
compile this biographical
information?
88
ME'TH()D
tv1ED1U~4
ludging from her resume,
what role do fairy tales play
in Sexton's life? Recall her
final line: « But poetry is
my love, my postma rk, my
hands, my kitchen, my
face." How de you interpret
this sentence? What other
references to lCface" can
you find in the resume? In
what sense does poet;y
possess a face?
Can you find any connections between the self
Sexton constructs in her
resume and the image
Arthur Furst captures with
his camera? What connections can you see between
Sexton's "Resume 1965"
and her poem "Self in
1958"? What images, for
example, appear in both
selections?