SOURCE: "Summoning the Body: Anne Sexton's Body Poems," in Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 4, Summer, 1987, pp. 511-24.

In the following essay, Hankins explores Sexton's response to patriarchal oppression and search for feminine identity in her portrayal of the female body. According to Hankins, "Her body poetry represents her journey to herself, for in accepting and learning to love her body, she is accepting and learning herself."

Robert Boyers so aptly said of Anne Sexton, "There is something awesome, even sublime in a woman who is not afraid to sound crude or shrill so long as she is honest, who in her best work sounds neither crude nor shrill precisely because she is honest." Mrs. Sexton reliably and openly confesses in her work; she seldom, if ever, yields to distortion or illusion. Her poems reflect the intimacy and complexity of her life and her struggle; she dares to set it...