Love Poems?

The poetry of Anne Sexton is considered by some to be love poetry. I'm not quite sure how I feel about labeling the poems as love poems. While themes of love are prevalent in her work, the fairy tale endings of romantic love poetry just are not present. The author's individual experiences are certainly pointedly included in the work. 

In Sexton's work, it seems as if the author is connecting her poetry to her own life experience. Sexton's poem "Briar Rose" especially stood out to me. It seems that the princess got her prince in the end, but the experience and the end result were not what she was expecting. The insomnia experienced by the princess can be explained by many things, but her father may be the primary reason. She says, "It's not the prince at all, but my father; drunkenly bent over my bed, circling the abyss like a shark, my father thick upon me; like some sleeping jellyfish." (Sexton 112) As an author with a history of sexual abuse, this part of her version of the tale of sleeping beauty makes sense. While the princess in "Briar Rose" may wake up and get her prince like the princess in "Sleeping Beauty," this princess certainly does not emerge from her experiences undamaged.

I also really connected with Sexton's poem about Rumpelstiltskin. The fairy tale was always one of my favorites growing up. I really enjoy seeing fairy tales from my childhood told from different perspectives. Instead of seeing Rumpelstiltskin as an actual small man, she sees him as a doppelganger. This hidden part of an individual can often be the dark side of someone. In her introduction to the poem, Sexton writes:


"I am your dwarf.
I am the enemy within.
I am the boss of your dreams.
No. I am not the law in your mind,
the grandfather of watchfulness.
I am the law of your members,
the kindred of blackness and impulse.
See. Your hand shakes.
It is not palsy or booze.
It is your Doppelganger
trying to get out.
Beware . . . Beware . . ."

We all must be afraid of the dark side of us coming out to play. Part of growing up is learning how to manage this darker side.

Telling the fairy tale from a different perspective enables Sexton to show this darker side of the story. Fractured fairy tales in general give a new perspective to the traditional fairy tale. Emma Donoghue is another writer who gives a unique perspective to old fairy tales. Her book Kissing The Witch takes the original fairy tales, focuses them on a random object from the story, and then tells the story from the perspective of usually the typical "villain." 


These different perspectives also give a different side of the usual love story. The princess may get her princess, but is she always happy? Not necessarily. She may be truly damaged by her experience. Or she could not be the real princess at all, but a talented imposter.


Let's learn more princess lessons from The Second City Network:

These two princesses have even more life lessons for young girls.