Words Written in Anger and Anguish (Anne Sexton)
As Sexton slowly slid out of control, a feature of her writing was to go to free verse from rhyme.
With words written in anger and anguish
From rhyme to free verse she veered
The former written when demons under control
The latter when they were freed, unsteered
She careered across the page with words
Her therapy became our literature, we read
Without guilt, as if her medical notes, which were released
When they should not have been, psychiatry meets poetry: instead
A new genre, and old story, and neither the therapy helped the poetry
Or the poetry enhanced the therapy
And like reading all medical notes
The reader is none the wiser for reading, and can be
Little the better afterwards.