How it was: Maxine Kumin on Anne Sexton

To bedlam and part way back(1960): You, Doctor Martin

Kind sir: these woods

Torn down from glory daily

Music swims back to me

Bells

Elizabeth gone

Some foreign letters

Kite

Said the poet to the analyst

Venus and the ark

Her kind

Exorcists

Where I live in this honorable house of the laurel tree

Portrait of an old woman on the college tavern wall

Farmer's wife

Funnel

Expatriates

For Johnny Pole on the forgotten beach

Unknown girl in the maternity ward

What's that

Moss of his skin

Hutch

Noon walk on the asylum lawn

Ringing the bells

Lullaby

Lost ingredient

Road back

Waiting head

Elegy in the classroom

Story for Rose on the midnight flight to Boston

For John, who begs me not to enquire further

Double image

Division of parts

All my pretty ones(1962): Truth the dead know

All my pretty ones

Young

Lament

To a friend whose work has come to triumph

Starry night

Old dwarf heart

I remember

Operation

Curse against elegies

Abortion

With mercy for the greedy

For God while sleeping

In the deep museum

Ghosts

Fortress

Old

Hangman

Woman with girdle

House

Water

Wallflower

Housewife

Doors, doors, doors

Letter written on a ferry while crossing Long Island Sound

From the garden

Love song for K. Owyne

Flight

For Eleanor Boylan talking with God

Black art

Letter written during a January northeaster

Live or die(1966): author's note

And one for my dame

Sun

Flee on your donkey

Three green windows

Somewhere in Africa

Imitations of drowning

Mother and Jack and the rain

Consorting with angels

Legend of the one-eyed man

Love song

Man and wife

Those times

Two sons

To lose the earth

Sylvia's death

Protestant Easter

For the year of the insane

Crossing the Atlantic

Walking in Paris

Menstruation at forty

Christmas Eve

KE 6-8018

Wanting to die

Wedding night

Little girl, my string bean, my lovely woman

Little uncomplicated hymn

Your face on the dog's neck

Self in 1958

Suicide note

In the beach house

Cripples and other stories

Pain for a daughter

Addict

Live

Love poems(1969): Touch

Kiss

Breast

Interrogation of the man of many hearts

That day

In celebration of my uterus

Nude swim

Song for a red nightgown

loving the killer

For my lover, returning to his wife

Break

It is a spring afternoon

Just once

Again and again and again

You all know the story of the other woman

Moon song, woman song

Ballad of the lonely masturbator

Barefoot

Papa and mama dance

Now

Us

Mr. Mine

Song for a lady

Knee song

Eighteen days without you

Transformations(1971): Gold key

Snow White and the seven dwarfs

White snake

Rumpelstiltskin

Little peasant

Godfather death

Rapunzel

Iron Hans

Cinderella

One-eye, two-eyes, three-eyes

Wonderful musician

Red Riding Hood

Maiden without hands

Twelve dancing princesses

Frog prince

Hansel and Gretel

Briar Rose(Sleeping Beauty)

Book of folly(1972): Thirty poems: Ambition bird

Doctor of the heart

Oh

Sweeney

Mother and daughter

Wifebeater

Firebombers

One-legged man

Assassin

Going gone

Anna who was mad

Hex

Dreaming the breasts

Red shoes

Other Silence

Hoarder

Killing the spring

Death of the father: Oysters

How we danced

boat

Santa

Friends

Begat

Angels of the love affair: Angel of fire and genitals

Angel of clean sheets

Angel of flight and sleigh bells

Angel of hope and calendars

Angel of blizzards and blackouts

Angel of beach houses and picnics

Jesus papers: Jesus suckles

Jesus awake

Jesus asleep

Jesus raises up the harlot

Jesus cooks

Jesus summons forth

Jesus dies

Jesus unborn

Author of the Jesus papers speaks

Death notebooks(1974): Gods

Making a living

For Mr. Death who stands with his door open

Faustus and I

Death baby: Dreams

Dy-dee doll

Seven times

Madonna

Max

Baby

Rats live on no evil star

Grandfather, your wound

Baby picture

Furies: Fury of beautiful bones

Fury of hating eyes

Fury of guitars and sopranos

Fury of earth

Fury of jewels and coal

Fury of cooks

Fury of cocks

Fury of abandonment

Fury of overshoes

Fury of rain storms

Fury of flowers and worms

Fury of God's good-bye

Fury of Sundays

Fury of sunsets

Fury of sunrises

Praying on a 707

Clothes

Mary's song

God's backside

Jesus walking

Hurry up please it's time

O ye tongues: First psalm

Second psalm

Third psalm

Fourth psalm

Fifth psalm

Sixth psalm

Seventh psalm

Eighth psalm

Ninth psalm

Tenth psalm

Awful rowing toward God(1975): Rowing

Civil war

Children

Two hands

Room of my life

Witch's life

Earth falls down

Courage

Riding the elevator into the sky

When man enters woman

Fish that walked

Fallen angels

Earth

After Auschwitz

Poet of ignorance

Sermon of the twelve acknowledgments

Evil eye

Dead heart

Play

Sickness unto death

Locked doors

Evil seekers

Wall

Is it true?

Welcome morning

Jesus, the actor, plays the holy Ghost

God-monger

What the bird with the human head knew

Fire thief

Big heart

Words

Mothers

Doctors

Frenzy

Snow

Small wire

Saints come marching in

Not so. Not so.

Rowing endeth

Posthumously published work

Editor's note: Beginning the hegira: 45 Mercy Street

Talking to sheep

Falling dolls

Money swing

Food

Child bearers

Taker

Risk

Praying to big Jack

Red roses

Shout

Keeping the city

Bestiary U.S.A.: Bat

Hog

Porcupine

Hornet

Star-nosed mole

Snail

Lobster

Snake

Moose

Sheep

Cockroach

Raccoon

Seal

Earthworm

Whale

Horse

June bug

Gull

Divorce papers: Where it was at back then

Wedlock

Landscape winter

Despair

Divorce

Waking alone

Bayonet

Wedding ring dance

When the glass of my body broke

Break away

Stand-ins

Love plant

Killing the love

Red dance

Inventory of goodbye

Lost lie

End, middle, beginning

Eating the leftovers: Cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women

Passion of the mad rabbit

Angel food dogs

Leaves that talk

"Daddy" Warbucks

Divorce, thy name is woman

Fierceness of female

Big boots of pain

Demon Sea corpse

There you were

Consecrating mother

Words for Dr. Y.(1978): Editor's note: Letters to Dr. Y.(1960-1970)

Poems 1971-1973: Buying the whore

To like, to love

Surgeon

Speaking bitterness

Telephone

Yellow

Death king

Errand

Twelve-thousand-day honeymoon

Scorpio, bad spider, die: the horoscope poems: Madame arrives in the mail

January 1st

January 19th

January 24th

February 3rd

February 4th

February 11th

February 17th

February 20th

February 21st

March 4th

March 7th

May 30th

August 8th

August 17th

Last poems: Admonitions to a special person

In excelsis

Uses

As it was written

Lessons in hunger

Love letter written in a burning building

Index of titles