I am spread out. I crucify.
This line shows a double entrende or showing double meaning or ways it can be interpreted. Shes representing the shape she's in when she in the act of pleasure and portraying the idiom figurative. When Sexton states " I crucify", she is representing the figure shes in similar to a person being crucified and when masturbating, shes invoking suffering in doing so.
Could I put the dream market on display?
This unique phrase had me a bit confused. My take on this line is that Sexton "dream market" is being involved in the life of sex and love. She at the same time is masturbating trying to find out ways to promote her own sex drive.Sexton is thinking about ways in where she can make others think about her sexually.
The Ballad of A Lonley Masturbator
The poem feels similar to " I am Stretched On Your Grave" by not following in a neat restrained formalist matter. Both poems addresses the matter of love in some way or another. Sexton and the poem "I am stretched on your grave" flirts with the meter and butchers the 4x4 form to achieve what they want to say rather than to meet the standards of poetry.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
The last stanza is all about self love. I see that she is masturbating her own ego and finds solace in doing so. She isolates herself from love and fake affection. Love is reciprocal and her masturbating is showing herself as a feminist icon. She does not need a man to be idealized as a sex machine. She has herself to be pleasured with and her being anti-man and a misogamist shows her strong feminist stance in a misogynist society. She is intrinsically connected to herself one would be connected to a love partner. The last line also serves as arefrain.
Take for instance this night, my love, that every single couple puts together with a joint overturning, beneath, above, the abundant two on sponge and feather, kneeling and pushing, head to head. At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Sexton is obviously trying to meet the 4x4 meter in which defines a typical ballad however she butchers the form a lot. She often input random pentameters -a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet with long syllables- making the meter very awkward and clumsy. Overall, there is no decorum in the poem and no clear and smooth rhythm. It can be pictured as a roller coaster as there is no stable meter. Sometimes in a line, there is a 4x4 meter and sometimes there is not. There are no smooth transitions just up and downs when it comes to the structure of the poem. The example of a pentameter would be " the abundant two on sponge and feather, kneeling and pushing, head to head." The head to head should be put first rather than last because the meter is obviously flirted with if not.
I am fed.
Sexton often refers to sexual satiation as food as the pleasure of sex is on the same spectrum of the pleasure of being fully fed. Both are necessities for pleasure in life and for survival.
The boys and girls are one tonight. They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies. They take off shoes. They turn off the light. The glimmering creatures are full of lies. They are eating each other. They are overfed.
In this stanza, it is certain that the poem carries a tone that sex is normal and that seeing young people having sex is customary. However, Sexton dehumanizes on the notion of them having sex. Hence why it is "boy and girls" and not "men and women". Boys and girls seek sexual pleasure in each other rather than themselves. Boys and girls are often promiscuous throughout their age so when it states that they are "glimmering creatures are full of lies", it is all fake affection. There is not a genuine feeling in the act of sex. There is also the fact that mankind is "overfed" or overindulged in the act of sex so the notion of sex being actually authentic is at stake.
She
"She" takes a very crucial role in the poem. Sexton never describes who "she" exactly is, making the reader make assumptions. However, sexton refers to her genitals as "she" instead of "it". She is such a powerful word in this context because it is a word of empowerment. Instead of looking down on her genitals, she personifies it to be something majestic. The genital is now depicted as something so delicate and alluring when she is masturbating.
The end of the affair is always death. She's my workshop. Slippery eye, out of the tribe of myself my breath finds you gone. I horrify those who stand by. I am fed. At night, alone, I marry the bed.
The picture shown above depicts the whole feel of Anne sexton in this stanza. She is heartbroken by an affair by her lover. She refers to her genitals as "she" and glorifies it as it was a form of art. The erotic overtone takes over the sorrowfulness of the poem by using masturbation as the overall vehicle of self-empowerment. She satisfies herself by filling up the void ( reference to the picture) the heartbreak has caused in order to feel loved and empowered
Finger to finger, now she's mine. She's not too far. She's my encounter. I beat her like a bell. I recline in the bower where you used to mount her. You borrowed me on the flowered spread. At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Like the other stanzas, the rhyme scheme of the stanza follows as such: ABABCC For example "mine" rhymes with "recline" and "encounter" rhymes with "mount her". The rhyme scheme give some sort of a musical effect to it. In most stanzas, the last two line rhymes which makes each line independent . This is called a "rhyming couplet" where each line completes each other and has the same rhyme scheme.
The Ballad of A Lonley Masturbator
The poem at first glance to me was a poem that seemed like a free verse poem. The poem did not follow a strict meter pattern as well of the fact that the rhythm was off thus making it a free verse poem. However, when looked closely, it is obvious to tell that Sexton is trying to meet the the metrical standards of a 4x4 ballad. Sexton poem includes mostly accentual verses. Accentual verses are verses with the same number of stresses despite that some lines stray away from a fixed number of syllables. In the poem, most line have around 7-10 syllables but 3-4 stresses, showing that the meter is there. Although, it is clear that Sexton was not trying to write the poem in a perfect 4x4 meter and in a tidy ballad matter. She is trying to accomplish an effect some sort of like an rebellion. Masturbation is taboo especially for women and it is not perfect so the metrical aspect of this poem is not perfect either. The poem was written in the way it wanted to be written. It does not fit into the metrical standards as Sexton did not believe in standards.