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Showing posts from March, 2015

Book Review: Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Wood Middlebrook

     I have good memories of biographies.  My elementary school classrooms always had a set of biographies (the condensed kind that are about a quarter inch thick), and I was probably the only kid in class who enjoyed them.  I still remember random details about the lives of Milton S. Hershey (of confectionery fame) and Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb.  For example, when I'm feeling hopelessly scatterbrained, I like to remind myself that Edison once forgot his own name for several hours after spacing out in a long line.  Clearly my forgetfulness is a mark of genius.  Right?      Despite these fond childhood associations, Anne Sexton is the first biography I've read in years. But I'm so glad I did read it!  Anne Sexton was one of the first poets to write "confessional" poetry about her own life, as opposed to the third-person, universal idea-centered poetry (think T.S. Eliot) that was preferred up until the late 60s'.  She began to write poetry at t