Published on Modern American Poetry (http://modernamericanpoetry.org)


Greg Johnson on: "The Truth the Dead Know"

In that strange, bitter elegy, "The Truth the Dead Know," Sexton seems to eschew the common rituals of mourning: "Gone, I say and walk from church, / refusing the stiff procession to the grave"; she prefers, instead to "cultivate myself" and to avoid such a powerful intimation of mortality as the death of both parents within a few months. The poem ends, however, by emphasizing not her own refusals but those of the dead, and into her voice creeps something like envy. . . .

From "The Achievement of Anne Sexton." The Hollins Critics (1984)

Publication Status: 
Excerpted Criticism [1]
Publication: 
- Private group -
Criticism Target: 
Anne Sexton [2]
Author: 
Greg Johnson [3]

Source URL: http://modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/greg-johnson-truth-dead-know

Links
[1] http://modernamericanpoetry.org/category/publication-status/excerpted-criticism
[2] http://modernamericanpoetry.org/poet/anne-sexton
[3] http://modernamericanpoetry.org/creator/greg-johnson