The book of folly.

Sexton wrote many of these points at the height of her powers, but didn't fit the themes of Love Poems or Transformations, so they appear here. Before telling getting into the best and not so great poems, Sexton's ability to order poems so the flow set one another up is uncanny.

Her first the Ambition Bird taps her muse - why she writes. What was new (or at least the first time I picked up on something like this) here was the reference to popular music. Sexton had formed a band and so the singer song writers of the late sixties as the progression of poetry. The ambition bird wants to be dropped / from high place like Tallahatchie Bridge. The Tallahatchie bridge is not a high bridge and is rather unremarkable, but was made famous in 1967 by Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe - that's bridge he jumps from and the first person narrator throws something off of.

The best poem in the book is Death of Fathers. The first two sections Oysters and How We Danced are the two best

Oysters we ate,
sweet blue babies,
twelve eyes looked up at me,
running with lemon and Tabasco.
I was afraid to eat this father-food
and Father laughed and
drank down his martini,
clear as tears.
It was a soft medicine
that came from the sea into my mouth,
moist and plump.
I swallowed.
It went down like a large pudding.
Then I ate one o'clock and two o'clock.
Then I laughed and then we laughed
and let me take note –
there was a death,
the death of childhood
there at the Union Oyster House
for I was fifteen
and eating oysters
and the child was defeated.
The woman won.

How We Danced

The night of my cousin's wedding
I wore blue.
I was nineteen
and we danced, Father, we orbited.
We moved like angels washing themselves.
We moved like two birds on fire.
Then we moved like the sea in a jar,
slower and slower.
The orchestra played
" Oh how we danced on the night we were wed. "
And you waltzed me like a lazy Susan
and we were dear,
very dear.
Now that you are laid out,
useless as a blind dog,
now that you no longer lurk,
the song rings in my head.
Pure oxygen was the champagne we drank
and clicked our glasses, one to one.
The champagne breathed like a skin diver
and the glasses were crystal and the bride
and groom gripped each other in sleep
like nineteen-thirty marathon dancers.
Mother was a belle and danced with twenty men.
You danced with me never saying a word.
Instead the serpent spoke as you held me close.
The serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me
like a great god and we bent together
like two lonely swans.

The last section of the Death of Fathers - Begat - narrator her real life revelation at 40 that her father was not in fact her biological father.

I enjoyed out the Red Shoe and The Death of Spring setup the Death of Fathers

When it came to the Angels and Jesus Papers, Sexton was on shakier ground. Her theology is not her strength. The first several of each really didn't resonate. The last Angel poem and the the Jesus papers from Jesus Summons to the Author of the Jesus Paper speaks were ok.

The worse poem here is Firebombers. Sexton did take place in the peace movement of her day. What made her stand out is that she read her personal poems about her daughters and life at rallies instead of political poetry. Firebomers was a weak attempt to fire something off for the movement and that shows.