No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rhône,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.



Anne Sexton at Poetry Foundation

Anne Sexton at the Academy of American Poets

Essays on Sexton at Modern American Poetry

Patricia Marx interviews Anne Sexton

I was looking at educational television in Boston, and I. A. Richards was explaining the form of a sonnet, and I thought, "Well, so that's a sonnet." Although I had learned it in high school, I hadn't ever done anything about it. And so I thought, "I'll try that. I think maybe I could." So I sat down and wrote in the form of a sonnet. I was so pleased with myself that for about three months I wrote a sonnet every day. There are no sonnets in my book. They have since been discarded. But that's the way I started.

"The Truth the Dead Know"

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Go to Tad Richards home page