I’m not sure who said it first, but the quote “You are who your friends are” came to mind when reading about Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. While I have heard this quote before and thought it to be true in some cases, I never believed it to be as true as in the case of Plath and Sexton. Both women were plagued by depression and it seems like they bonded over it too. In “Sylvia’s Death”, Sexton refers to suicide as “our boy” telling us that they had clearly discussed the topic several times. I think it is safe to say they were both obsessed with death. There are so many similarities between the two poets. Besides their suicides, they were feminists who practiced confessional poetry and both from Massachusetts. I feel like it is hard to analyze either poet’s work without thinking about their suicides and basically how morbid their minds were. I know after reading their bios that was stuck in the back of my head. I mean Plath even mentions one of her suicide attempts in “Daddy”, so it is hard not to focus on that.
Overall, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the poems we read, but since I am from Massachusetts I felt in the loop with the references!
What did you guys find?
