The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton

The stuff of Sexton's life, mercilessly dissected, is here in the poems. Of all the confessional poets, none has had quite Sexton's 'courage to make a clean breast of it.' Nor has any displayed quite her brilliance, her verve, her headlong metaphoric leaps ... Women poets in particular owe a debt to Anne Sexton, who broke new ground, shattered taboos, and endured a barrage of attacks along the way because of the flamboyance of her subject matter ... Sexton has earned her place in the canon. --Maxine Kumin.