Live or Die

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: A gripping poetry collection mapping the thorny journey from madness to hope.

Anne Sexton won immediate recognition as a strong voice in American poetry with the 1960 publication of her first book, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, followed by critical acclaim of her second volume, All My Pretty Ones, published in 1962. Live or Die, her third volume, consists of poems written from January 25, 1962 to February, 1966, many of them published in such leading periodicals as The New Yorker, Harper’s and Encounter.

These poems are arranged chronologically and compose a fierce and intimate autobiography. The poet speaks with total frankness, her imagery and reference brilliant and hard as diamonds. It is impossible for her to be banal. Much of her experience is rendered as nightmarish, but it is significant that the final poem is stunningly affirmative, its title the single command “Live.”

This collection is a striking body of work by a poet whose experience is intensely female, whose poetry is strong and powerful.