My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget who one words is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
somethhing I might have said…
but did not.
Your business is watching my words. But I
admit nothing. I worth with my best, for instances,
when I can write my praise for a nickel machine,
that one night in Nevada: telling how the magic jackpot
came clacking three bells out, over the lucky screen.
But if you should say this is something it is not,
then I grow weak, remembering how my hands felt funny
and ridiculous and crowded with all
the believing money.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Anne Sexton's poem Said The Poet To The Analyst

2 Comments

  1. Molli Swift says:

    Why do people tell you that your peotry is something it is not.Why do people tell you your poetry is a cry for help. I hate when people pin down meaning.

  2. José Armindo says:

    Wonderful poem! It’s a fantastic insight of the distance beetwen words and thougs and feelings, about the incompreension that most times exist in the psycotherapeutic work! This poem talks about the realitys that exist and their meanings and, once more, tell us that the art is sometimes the best way to express them.

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