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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Gracefully Insane revisited

A few days ago I posted the following Anne Sexton quotation, "Even so, I must admire your skill. You are so gracefully insane." Lucindyl was curious about it asking if I knew in what context it was used and suggesting it must have a good story behind it.


The line is actually from a poem titled Eulogy In the Classroom by Sexton. I am imaging that it is a representation of the poet Robert Lowell who taught a class that Saxton, Plath and George Starbuck all were associated with. Given Sexton’s tendency to write Confessional Poetry it would not seem to be too far a reach to come to this conclusion. From everything else that I have read about Sexton and Lowell it would seem that she had quite a bit of respect for his brilliance even as she surely must have seen his decline in mental status.



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1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this, Michael. Very helpful and very interesting. Makes perfect sense, also.

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