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3 unusual facts about Anne Sexton


Anne Sexton

Her play Mercy Street, starring Marian Seldes, was produced in 1969, after several years of revisions.

After a second episode in 1955 she met Dr. Martin Orne, who became her long-term therapist at the Glenside Hospital.

Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake

In her collection of poems titled Transformations (1971), Anne Sexton mentions the Irish Sweepstakes in the first stanza of "Cinderella."


Jane Flanders

Joyce Carol Oates said of her first published volume that, "Many of her poems have the bite and sting of Ann Sexton's poetry, but they are admirably restrained as well, tracing the necessary journey one makes in "coming back" to one's deepest self after a busy, extroverted life." Publishers Weekly described her as "a radiant poet," a characterization Karl Kirchwey adopted as the title of an appreciation in which he compares her to Elizabeth Bishop.

New York Quarterly

The NYQ is widely known for featuring poems and/or interviews with writers such as Charles Bukowski, W. H. Auden, Anne Sexton, Ted Kooser, Franz Wright, Karl Shapiro, Macdonald Carey, Richard Eberhart, Michael McClure, and Lyn Lifshin.


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