SOURCE: Eddy, Darlene Mathis. “This Sculptor and the Rock: Some Uses of Myth in the Poetry of May Sarton.” In May Sarton: Woman and Poet, pp. 179-86. Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, Inc., 1982.

In the following essay, Eddy observes elements of classical, Judeo-Christian, and Far Eastern mythical patterns in Sarton's poetry and argues that this use of myth is Sarton's attempt to create order in a chaotic universe.

In Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton declares that for her, poetry is a “soul-making tool.”¹ Her metaphor directs us toward the center of her aesthetic consciousness. Throughout her work runs a constant preoccupation with what she describes in Plant Dreaming Deep as “choosing, defining, creating harmony, bringing that clarity and shape that is rest and light out of disorder and confusion.”² Her understanding of the active processes of creation, the intelligent and skilled transforming of experience into art, is...