Tag Archives: Anne Sexton

check your tongue

31 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Feminism, Poetry, sonnet

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Of my three aunts, Sylvia, Adrienne
and Anne, two killed themselves and one refused

to look at me. I’ve loved them. I’ve loved gin,
static-buzz, bone-fever — all that confused

their words with being something more. “Nomen
est omen:” call me, “Left Behind.” Call her:

“Matertera.” Without these three women
what am I? Check your tongue about that slur

that I’ve broken my pact made between gods
and their dire verse; as if either pleased.

Tonight I want an aunt’s voice that marauds
through my skull, that translates all that buzzed

into something. Confessions. I love them.
I love their words. Their so-called hate and sin.

anne sexton’s HER KIND

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Illustration and art, Poetry, Portuguese, Translation

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HER KIND

Todos sozinhos eu saí, uma bruxa possessa,
assombrando o ar negro, mais corajosa à noite;
sonhando maldade, realizei meu voo
por sobre as casas, luz após luz:
Eu sou um coisa sozinha, com doze dedos, fora do juízo.
Uma mulher como essa não é uma mulher, quase.
Uma vez eu era o tipo dela.
.
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
.
— from Anne Sexton, HER KIND