Has everyone been keeping up with the reading list for CRLiterature Book Club: April 2015 - and how do we feel about Christian and Ana so far? Aren't they just, like, the bestest?
I kid. And I apologize for posting the mid-month a few days late; but, hey, the book's got a lot of poems and we're reading to past the midpoint anyway, so it fits! This month, in case you're just checking in for the first time now, we're reading April Book Club: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton, a pivotal work of 20th-Century confessional and feminist poetry. And right now, if you're up-to-date, you should have read up to at least the end of the poems taken from Love Poems. Let's discuss!
Question the First
In your estimation, have the poems so far portrayed medicine, especially gynecology/obstetrics and psychiatry, in a flattering light or more of a horrifying one? And do you think the stylistic treatments Sexton has given the two fields (and the disparate themes and images she links to the two in her works) are colored solely by her personal experiences, or more as a reflection and challenge of social perceptions about femininity and its connection to mental illness?
Question the Second
People often compare Sexton's treatment of psychiatry in poetry to that of Plath; if you're familiar with Plath's work, do you see the similarity? I personally don't, apart from their being women who wrote about medicine in the same era; I'm more likely to compare Sexton to Susanna Kaysen than Plath, outlook-wise.
Question the Third
Does Sexton seem happy in her roles as woman, wife and mother so far? Do some roles seem to satisfy her more than others? Does she want to be a wife and mother, or is she working too hard to convince herself and her readers?
Question the Fourth
So far there haven't been many poems that have been interconnected, no "plot arcs", in the collection. But the poems are divided by the collections in which they were originally published. Do the "themes" of each collection seem clean-cut to you or is it all blending into a cohesive body of work so far?
The Rest of the Book
Know how I kept saying "so far"? It's because the collection derails now, into longer interconnected works and "genre" pieces, with no confessionalism for a bit. The back half of the book has all of my personal favourite works by Sexton (except one I'll share at month-end), but it's going to read like a completely different poet save for the New England Gothic voice that carries through. Keep going, though, because we have prizes!
We'll be giving away a three-month premium membership and copies of You Might Curse Before You Bless by Allie Marini Batts (courtesy of ELJ Publications) and The Uncertainty Principle by Roxanna Bennett (courtesy of Tightrope Books) to participants. (You don't want an ocelot; they pee on everything you love.)
We are reconvening on May 1st to wrap up the month, so discuss, then get back to reading!
Skin by Dan Leveille
