. . . Anne Sexton’s letters is that, even as she types a blue streak to her correspondents, spiraling up and down about her flaming inner life —

“ . . . sometimes I am a little crazy (withdrawn for a time and then flashing into a manic excitement, wild words, wild talking) . . . and yet not quite as crazy as all that . . . ”

— she thinks in poetry. Here is a fragment of a letter from 1962, word for word, ellipses and all, but unprosed:

At night the dump was lovely,
burning in gray and scarlet fires out over the water.

I remember most the rain, the rain, the rain.
It was sept, october, november and december and
it rained. I had never seen
Christmas lights up over the streets in the rain . . .

I drove out to the coast in five days . . .
stopping seldom except once
at Reno where I won about 50 bucks . . .
it was a wild ride.

I love the mountains and those huge trees, the redwoods.