A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling over me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother’s window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father’s window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman’s yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Anne Sexton's poem Young

27 Comments

  1. M says:

    She is still a child in this poem. She is purposfully obscuring the details of her relationship to her parents, but essentially realizing she is not quite an adult, but is past seeing her parents through rose-coloured glasses. That’s why she tells her dreams goodnight.

  2. Brooke says:

    The speaker was a girl, probably in her mid-teenage years in this poem, and she is now recalling her summers as a little girl. She has not fully reached the stage of womanhood yet, but she has come to the realization that she is no longer a child. She is apparently very wealthy and probably the only child because she said she was “a lonely kid in a big house.” The light coming out of her mother’s window represents her having a warm relationship with her parents, however the half-shut window symbolizes the mystery that her father is in her eyes. And “an eye where sleeper pass” shows that while she does love her father he is a man that often prefers to keep to himself. Though she has a warm relationship with her mother, she does not trust her, which is seen when taking into consideration that her question and thought seem to be confessed only to the stars. The point that the speaker looks as though she is trying to get across is that even though we may feel completely alone at time as we face the many stages and struggles in our lives, we are never truly alone, because we will always have the stars and God to listen to us.

  3. Billally Bopkins says:

    Ga BEST beset poem ever

  4. Antonio Moore says:

    I liked this one it gave me a sense of safety and it put an image of God and the starsin my head. It was great.

  5. Sharaina Troop says:

    The poem has to do with her becoming a young women and finding her sensuality- i think……….

  6. Chad says:

    I think this npoem was written about a girl whe she is all grown up an she is at her parents house remembering all when she was a little girl when she layed in her lawn watching the stars and whatching in her parents window

  7. Kaitlyn says:

    I liked the it alot,I think it was about her growing up and what the day was like and how she didn’t feel like a woman yet but she was almost there and about her summer growing up

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