Transformations in Into the Forest

Jan 29, 2017 Katy rated it really liked it

Shelves: forest_2017

Some of the references can be dated for younger readers, the language is beautiful and at times disturbing. I can feel some of her suicidal tendencies in her poetry. A troubled soul with some wonderful insights into people.

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Jun 16, 2014 Melanti rated it liked it

Shelves: fairy-tales-folklore-and-mythology, library, 2014, classics, poetry

I think I've heard Anne Sexton mentioned in the same breath as Angela Carter so often that I was expecting something more along the lines of Carter's twisted retellings that have Little Red Riding Hood seducing the wolf, or Beauty turning into a lion in order to stay with the Beast.

But instead, what Sexton delivers is mostly straight-forward retellings that are surprisingly "by the book" other than a bit of change to modernize the settings. There were a few - especially towards the end of the v ...more

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Mar 10, 2010 Mir rated it liked it

Shelves: poetry, mythology

Elizabeth said: Sexton wrote a play entitled Mercy Street, which also led to the Peter Gabriel song of the same title. But, really, if you want a connection, read Sexton's The Frog Prince while listening to Gabriel's Kiss that Frog. Domesticated terror indeed. Also, Shawn Colvin's "Object of My Affection." ...more

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Jan 13, 2012 Nalnac rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry, fairy-tale, writers-i-love, short-stories

Seventeen of the classic Grimm Fairy Tales: Modern-Intimate-Personal-Provoking-Dark-Twisted-Funny retelling.
Published in 1971 and it's still so modern today.

This collection of poems is for :

- those who love fairy tales.
- those who love stories in verse.
- those who love poetry (and whished bookstores had "larger" sections dedicated to it)
- the kind of Women Who Run with the Wolves.
- your kids. And their fathers too.

Some people are born with the gift of the Word.
Anne Sexton is One of them.
...more

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Apr 01, 2015 Katie J Schwartz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: black-and-white, library, classics, poetry, old-faces-new-tales, the-witching-hour, fairy-tales, fey-creatures

What can I say about Anne Sexton's Transformations?

I could say that she retells these well-known fairy tales by connecting them to the human experience:

Cinderella and her prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.

I could say that she wrote some fantastic imagery:

The thirteenth fairy

...more

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Apr 24, 2018 jocelyn added it

Shelves: folk-fairy-myth, poetry

I feel weird trying to assign a star rating for this one because just reading it through once, I'm not sure I fully appreciate it. I'll see if I can rate it properly upon reread and maybe even further research. ...more

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