Uncovering the Female Voice in Anne Sexton

Abstract

This paper explores the concealed narrative voice of Sexton in a selection of her poetry, concentrating mainly on the works “All My Pretty Ones,” “Unknown Girl in a Maternity Ward,” and “The Abortion.” The impulse of Sexton’s voice in these poems in particular counters the cultural spacings provided for and the inherited female traits of (not) figuring the female voice. Sexton’s poetry seeks a redefinition of the written text in order for that text to accommodate the real narratives of the American female. Although not primarily a biographical study, this paper acknowledges Sexton’s adoption of drinking habits associated with males, in particular her father, her adaptation of female structures and strictures of silence, initially from her mother, and also works within but also against the reductionist labelling of the US’s Middle Generation Poets as “confessional.”