All My Pretty Ones Summary

All My Pretty Ones, whose title is lifted from the section in Shakespeare's Macbeth, wherein Macduff learns that his wife and children have been slaughtered, is a potent meditation on death and family. The book is divided into five parts of varying length, and each seems to convey a particular theme or color, but most all are about family, loss, death, and grief. Part I, for example, is comprised of nine poems centering mostly around the death of Sexton's parents, whereas Part III is a single, uniquely hopeful poem.

In part one, the book begins with "The Truth the Dead Know", which Sexton dedicates to her mother and father before listing their respective dates of birth and death, as would be found on a tombstone. The poem describes the moments after her father's funeral, and it paints...