SOURCE: Mandel, Charlotte. “To See the Chaos Unbewildered: May Sarton's Earliest Collections.” In A House of Gathering: Poets on May Sarton's Poetry, edited and with an introduction by Marilyn Kallet, pp. 47-64. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Mandel explores major themes and poetic forms in Sarton's early poetry and discusses them as part of the “signature” of her work.

A painter's hand may actuate characteristic spirals, angles, or brush strokes to create a form of writing as singular as her legal signature. For a poet, associations of image with sound, syllabic rhythms, and syntactical oddities may design unique patterns of artistic verbalization. Working poets begin to recognize and accept the intrusion of certain similes and metaphors into first drafts and learn to draw upon these familiar (often “family”) sources as welcome clues toward creative discovery. Out of the never-resolved argument between values previously absorbed...