Poetry Break: "Her Kind" by Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

Remember that scene in the cartoon adaptation of Alice in Wonderland when Alice gets swept away through the keyhole? That's sort of how I'm feeling right now, so any non-academic writing time has sort of disappeared for the time being. But my mum shared this poem with me and its lines are just so powerful . . . I mean, the combination of "suppers for the worms and the elves" and "rearranging the disaligned" is poignant and perfect, and Anne Sexton's story is a tragic one.

Speaking of tragic--has anyone been following the news about Hurricane Matthew?  It breaks my heart when I see the weather tracker images of it over the Caribbean, and I wish there were more I could do for the people there :(. 

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

<3 Frances