John J. Mood on Anne Sexton
We spoke of many other poems of hers, as well as her first play, which was scheduled for production a few months later. She was understandably worried, especially about the public nature of the theater in contrast to the private relation of an individual reading a book of her poems. And of course this public dimension was also part of her worry about the reading this evening. We discussed possible selections for the reading. I wouldn't make any suggestions but she seemed not to mind. We considered, to no conclusion, why the New Yorker (with whom she has a contract) accepted so many of her un-New-Yorker-ish poems. We also spoke at length of the chamber rock music group of hers with which she usually reads. We spoke of other poets and poems. She said her two favorite poets were Rilke and Neruda. She spoke admiringly of Allen Ginsberg. She likes James Wright's work. She thinks Lord Weary's Castle is still Lowell's best. She doesn't think his Life Studies confesses very much. We talked about Ted Hughes' approaching visit to America. And of course we thought of Sylvia.
["We are bare. We are stripped to the bone"]
We spoke of madness. As with the love of death, I have little, Anne has much. It was somewhat painful for both of us to speak of this, for obvious though differing reasons. But we were both getting a bit more boozy, and we were close. I felt deficient somehow because I had rather tightly controlled the manic in me. She hadn't. She said I would like her when she was manic: she was more exciting. We circled around this by talking about drugs. I don't like pills, of any kind. She likes pills, though not speed or other amphetamines. She likes the effect, but not particularly the taste of alcohol. She said she would even like martini pills. I, on the other hand, like the taste of liquor and was certainly feeling the effect of it at that point. We both prefer pot. I told a story of a recent experience with what was supposed to be acid but turned out actually to be nine-tenths speed. She won't take acid for precisely that reason: you don't know what you're getting. We also sidled around the manic thing by talking about our psychiatrists. She has a great one. She told me, for example, that her psychiatrist—an older man, apparently a full human being—had simply held her in his arms on the day of Bob Kennedy's assassination. Mine, on the other hand, had criticized me for doing what he called "hiding" what was "really" on my mind when I tried to articulate to him the mythic sense and meaning of Kennedy's death.
["...Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones."]
— excerpted from "'A Bird Full of Bones': Anne Sexton: A Visit and a Reading," by John J. Mood, published in Chicago Review 23:4/24:1.
