Gracefully Insane (pgs 145-168)

Summary
They talk about another former patient by the name of Anne Sexton. She wrote poetry because she felt that it was the only thing that would keep her sane. Her doctor, Dr. Orne, often read her poems and loved them. He says that her poems were a major part of her gaining back her sanity. They were significant to the extent that her doctor said poetry is what saved her life. She was able to return home to her family. Other former patients also wrote poetry, such as Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. However, poetry didn't impact them as strongly as it did Sexton. Plath and Lowell both knew that they weren't stable. They often talked to each other about committing suicide. Then Plath finally died, and Sexton wrote a poem suggesting that Plath stole her place in death. However, they talk about Plath's experiences in McLean before her death. Plath received two shock treatments and from those treatments she was able to regain her personality and composure. This was at a very quick pace, so that in the same month she got those treatments, which was in December, she was able to share Christmas with her family at home. But later she got married, and her marriage was reaching a crisis because her husband was having an affair. They eventually separated, and four months later Plath committed suicide. Soon poetry became very popular for the patients of McLean. The poems were so good that they were eventually published. One of Sexton's students Eleanor Morris, was truly affected by her poetry. However, he relates the sadness at her loss. He mentioned that when they said that she died, he knew that she had committed suicide and he cried the entire morning. He still possesses a book of poems that she wrote, and to this day Eleanor writes poetry in Concord, Massachusetts.

Quote
"Exalted like a queen among sin
and those who only half dared to reach for help. But I believed
that anywhere she'd come would be where
all sorts of thoughts, ill-formed, might be conceived,
and come out twitching, perfect infants through the hair
I imagined she had never let them shave.
She seemed, before meeting, to be, in that way, say, brave." (Beam 166).

Reaction
One of Sexton's students sent her this poem that he wrote. I knew there was a deep meaning to this poem that I probably was not getting, but it still caught my attention. Especially when he says that she was "exalted like a queen among sin". I thought maybe he was saying this because the queen is perfect, which is why she's exalted, but all the people surrounding her are sinful. However, he contradicts that statement later on when he says that where she comes from there would be ill-formed thoughts. Or he might be saying that wherever she goes she's surrounded by those thoughts. I'm not too sure, but that's about my best guess. However, I don't know why he mentions that the thoughts come out twitching through the hair of perfect infants. I'm assuming that he's saying that one day these thoughts will escape their minds. But it is not escaping their minds yet because as he says at the end of his poem she doesn't let them shave their heads, so the sick thoughts cannot escape their minds. However, I'm not sure why he says that it makes her brave. I guess because keeping those sick thoughts in their mind for so long would make them insane, and she is at risk of being the cause of that because she does not let those thoughts escape them.