"The Truth the Dead Know" is a very emotion-filled piece of poetry, and is an elegy. The style of this work is a confessional, in iambic pentameter, I believe. Anne Sexton wrote this poem about her father's death in June of 1959. Her mother died just before in March of 1959.
Right from the git-go you feel the sense of loss that envelopes the stanzas in this poem. I mean, she starts off the poem by saying "Gone, I say as I walk and walk from church, refusing the stiff procession to the grave, letting the dead ride alone in the hearse." Now let's have that resonate for a second. I think Sexton is referring to the loss of life as it applies to the dead. The truth the dead know is purely in death itself. We live in a world where religion is a huge topic of interest and massive part of life for many, but only those who die truly know where death takes you.
In this same first stanza, she also says " I am tired of being brave." I think this goes without much explanation, if you've ever lost a loved one you know the multitude of emotions that happen over the course of that loss, and I think Anne is referring to more than the truth the dead know, but the unknowing we feel as we live on without our dead loved ones.
Sexton follows by adding beauty into this piece with the following stanza, "I cultivate myself where the sun glitters from the sky, and where the sea swings in like an iron gate and we touch." There is a beauty in her sadness, and she follows this by saying "In another country people die." This, in my opinion is her trying to accept that her mother and father are no more, just a memory in a sea of faces. By adding that others die in another place she is able to semi grasp the reality unfolding before her eyes, without having to directly deal with the loss of now, both parents. Although the imagery alludes beauty, she is very disconnected with this because she is wrapped up in her own loss.
The next stanza really breaks my heart for her, and for everyone who has felt the loss of a loved one. "My darling, the wind falls in like stones from the whitehearted water and when we touch, we touch entirely. No one's alone. Men kill for this, or for as much." She is alone for the moment, alone in her sorrow, and alone physically. Her parents are both gone and I felt a pang in my own chest as I read the final stanza where she speaks of how the dead are more like stone than the sea if it stopped.
This is a very heavy poem, infused with wild imagery throughout that really helps the reader capture the emotions she is sharing, and letting you have.
Right from the git-go you feel the sense of loss that envelopes the stanzas in this poem. I mean, she starts off the poem by saying "Gone, I say as I walk and walk from church, refusing the stiff procession to the grave, letting the dead ride alone in the hearse." Now let's have that resonate for a second. I think Sexton is referring to the loss of life as it applies to the dead. The truth the dead know is purely in death itself. We live in a world where religion is a huge topic of interest and massive part of life for many, but only those who die truly know where death takes you.
In this same first stanza, she also says " I am tired of being brave." I think this goes without much explanation, if you've ever lost a loved one you know the multitude of emotions that happen over the course of that loss, and I think Anne is referring to more than the truth the dead know, but the unknowing we feel as we live on without our dead loved ones.
Sexton follows by adding beauty into this piece with the following stanza, "I cultivate myself where the sun glitters from the sky, and where the sea swings in like an iron gate and we touch." There is a beauty in her sadness, and she follows this by saying "In another country people die." This, in my opinion is her trying to accept that her mother and father are no more, just a memory in a sea of faces. By adding that others die in another place she is able to semi grasp the reality unfolding before her eyes, without having to directly deal with the loss of now, both parents. Although the imagery alludes beauty, she is very disconnected with this because she is wrapped up in her own loss.
The next stanza really breaks my heart for her, and for everyone who has felt the loss of a loved one. "My darling, the wind falls in like stones from the whitehearted water and when we touch, we touch entirely. No one's alone. Men kill for this, or for as much." She is alone for the moment, alone in her sorrow, and alone physically. Her parents are both gone and I felt a pang in my own chest as I read the final stanza where she speaks of how the dead are more like stone than the sea if it stopped.
This is a very heavy poem, infused with wild imagery throughout that really helps the reader capture the emotions she is sharing, and letting you have.
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