ts anne sexton vs slvia plath

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i like because she has a sense of humour, and never compared herself to victims of the shoah.

― anthony, Thursday, 2 June 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

Sexton is the better person. Plath is the better poet. Sorry.

― The Mad Puffin, Thursday, 2 June 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

sexton's best poetry is as good as plath's best. sexton wrote more though so there is more subpar stuff to wade through. but I think sexton gets to a more interesting place. i haven't read either in ages, although reading anne sexton was what made me want to study literature.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 2 June 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

also, anne sexton was never portrayed on film by Gwyneth Paltrow so therefore she wins

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 2 June 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

Gotta be Sexton as Plath nevah did anything as hipshakingly good as 'You've been gone too long'.

― Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 2 June 2005 20:23 (twenty years ago)

Oh, AnnE. My mistake.

― Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 2 June 2005 20:23 (twenty years ago)

(But 'You're losing me' is good too)

― Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 2 June 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

i'm not sure about sexton being the better person, considering her daughter's claim that she sexually abused her. her fairy tale poems are good, though.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 2 June 2005 21:23 (twenty years ago)

Plath is the better craftsman. That said, I find her stuff horribly melodramatic now ("Daddy" is unreadable); I'd rather read Elizabeth Bishop, for whom I feel an admiration that verges on awe. But it never fails: my undergraduates always fall for Plath as hopelessly as I did when I was 18 and misunderstood.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 2 June 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

Another resounding vote for Elizabeth Bishop.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 2 June 2005 22:21 (twenty years ago)

not on the list, not fair--bishop of course wins

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 2 June 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

They're both good.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 2 June 2005 22:41 (twenty years ago)

I'll take all 3, though SP was the one that ROCKED MY WORLD. There's a performance of "Nick and the Candlestick" from Robert Pinsky's United States of Poetry project (where folks from all walks of life talk about a poem they like, and poetry in general) that is unbelievably great. (FYI - the performance is by some amateur photographer, not SP.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 2 June 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

And, actually, "One Art" is probably my favorite non-O'Hara poem.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 2 June 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

Alfred is completely OTM in that Sylvia was the better craftsperson. She's a classic example of somebody whose biography has obscured their talent. If she hadn't committed suicide, her poetry would be treated with a hundred times more respect. The other "confessionals" are amateurs in comparison.

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Friday, 3 June 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Bishop is the greatest, so beyond betty angst, never published an extraneous word, ever, every syllable exactly where it was meant to be.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 3 June 2005 02:05 (twenty years ago)

Plath is the better writer, and an interesting person.

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:05 (twenty years ago)

plath is too contained, too dry--sexless, bored, and fake in the most obvious way. sexton bleeds.

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:17 (twenty years ago)

you're trying to bait me, aren't you?

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:22 (twenty years ago)

no--i actually believe that.

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:23 (twenty years ago)

I like this poem by Anne Sexton called Her Kind. I'm not terribly familiar with either poet.

Alfred is completely OTM in that Sylvia was the better craftsperson.

I'd be interested in examples of this. Please also recommend poems by Bishop. Thanks a lot.

― youn, Friday, 3 June 2005 03:31 (twenty years ago)

Read The Collosus by Sylvia Plath.

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

taking Paul Celan over both...now

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Friday, 3 June 2005 03:46 (twenty years ago)

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/annesexton/581

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 3 June 2005 10:07 (twenty years ago)

Diana Wood Middlebrook's biography of Anne Sexton is worth a look.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 3 June 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

Thanks, anthony. Yes, I remembered "Her Kind" from Middlebrook's biography.

― youn, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

if anne sexton were an url she would be www.livejournal.com - plath is a poet, sexton a poetry-slam starlet

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:34 (twenty years ago)

i dont think that people give sexton credit for her formal innovation, her deconstruction of tradtional verse forms, her regendering fairy tales, her move towards a complicated realtionship, with christian mystics, her attempting to make prophecy under form, and her deep hard work on the form of her poems--she is not ginsberg, she is not ranting--but she is not the closed bee box of plath

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:02 (twenty years ago)

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