Sexton is among the most celebrated poets of the confessional school. Her highly emotional, self-reflexive verse, characterized by preoccupations with childhood guilt, mental illness, motherhood, and female sexuality, is distinguished for its stunning imagery, artistry, and remarkable cadences. An unlikely latecomer to the literary scene, Sexton underwent a rapid metamorphosis from suburban housewife to major literary figure in the early 1960s. Sexton's art and life—culminating in her suicide—converged with the convictions of the contemporary feminist movement, drawing attention to the oppressive, circumscribed existence of women in middle-class American society.

Biographical Information

Born Anne Gray Harvey in Newton, Massachusetts, Sexton was the youngest of three daughters raised in an upper-middle-class home near Boston. Her mother, a housewife and daughter of a published author, had aspired to be a poet in her own right, and Sexton struggled throughout her life with a sense of competition with her mother...