Here, Anne Sexton writes to fellow poet Stanley Kunitz about the vulnerability of daisies and the toughness in her poetry.
February 17, 1971
Dear Stanley,
I have special knowledge about daisies. They last and last as both you and I will. They are my favorite flower. There is something innocent and vulnerable about them as if they thanked you for admiring them.
I am sorry that you had a rough time but am glad to hear that you are on the mend.
Thank you for that sentence about Transformations. I read it every day to being my spirits up, and I’m sure the publishers will put it to good use, and it had indeed quieted their qualms about the worth of this new work.
It’s strange that you say I’m “too tough” for my “blazing hurry” (that sentence makes no sense, but you know what I mean). People are always telling me I’m tough. Maybe because I’ve survived so much. Inside I feel like cooked broccoli, and I don’t mean the stalks which should be crisp and tasty. I mean the heads that fall apart when you cut them. The only time I’m tough in my own mind is when I’m seized by a poem and then determined to conquer it and let it live its own peculiar life. All my toughness goes into my writing. All an effort, really, not to sound like a sap. Oh well, I’m just going on.. Don’t feel in any hurry to answer this. Do so at your most leisure.
With best wishes and fond regards,
Anne the Broccoli
From Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters. Sexton, Anne, Lois Ames, and Linda Gray Sexton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.