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Unread 11-10-2006, 09:48 PM
Robert J. Clawson Robert J. Clawson is offline
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Location: Massachusetts
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The Tribute to Anne Sexton has been postponed from November 12 to December 10: same venue, same time of day, same poets.

Because of a construction delay (scaffolding for roof-repair still hinders seating), we are unable to use Forsyth Chapel on November 12. For people who cannot be informed of the change (for instance, Globe readers), Bob Clawson will present a program on Sexton at 2:00 this Sunday in the portico of the receiving tomb near the chapel. A walk to Anne’s grave site will follow.

We regret this postponement, but we hope to see you on December 10.


Tapestry of Voices and the Forest Hills Educational Trust present

CELEBRATING ANNE SEXTON

with poets Lois Ames, Suzanne Berger, Robert J. Clawson and Victor Howes
Sunday, December 10 at 2 pm
in Forsyth Chapel at historic Forest Hills Cemetery
95 Forest Hills Avenue, Boston MA

If she were alive, Anne Sexton would turn 78 this year. Many of her friends, students, and colleagues are still around, though, and
still celebrating her as a poet and a force. This November 12, they’ll
gather for a fifth annual tribute at Forsyth Chapel, reading her
iconoclastic poetry and their own. The reading ends with a walk to Sexton’s
burial site on the surrounding grounds of Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica
Plain.

People who love Sexton’s poetry - her rawness, her energy, her way with
words - would do well to attend the celebration. This is a chance to meet
Victor Howes, who knew Anne as a member of the New England Poetry Club; Lois Ames, who edited Sexton’s "Life in Letters"; Robert J. Clawson, who managed her band, "Anne Sexton and Her Kind"; and Suzanne Berger, one
of her students at B.U..

Anne Sexton stirred up trouble with her poetry, and in her personal life. She was wild, transgressive, and wildly intelligent, a break-out from the suburban middle class. Her poetry still exudes disturbance, excitement, electricity. Its aggressive honesty still
influences poetry today.

Admission: $5. Directions and details at www.foresthillstrust.org or
617.524.0128. PLENTY OF PARKING
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  #2  
Unread 11-10-2006, 11:59 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Tomakin, NSW, Australia
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Love her work.

But even the postponement won't help me get there, Bob.

Are we allowed to post poems on General Announcements?

Let those who find it offensive remove it.


Courage

by Anne Sexton


It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.


[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited November 11, 2006).]
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