Witchy & Weird Poem of the Week: “The Black Art” by Anne Sexton

Here the Moon-Birds will sacrifice to you, our readers, a weekly poem which has caught our eye(s)—poems which invoke, in whatever way, witchy-ness, spooky-ness, the sacred feminine, the mysterious, or the otherworldly. 

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Anne Sexton’s poetry has always read to me like the inside of my own mind, only polished to something more incisive and poetical. I love her. Deeply and passionately. And “The Black Art” has the benefit of being both somewhat occult, and also a poem which invokes the pregnancy of writing. The concept of a “weird abundance,” on which the poem closes is also unexpectedly evocative to me. Feast, my pretties.

Since the poem is not in the public domain, I’m linking you to where you can read it over at the Poetry Foundation (so as not to be arrested); don’t neglect to turn to the second page of the poem.

The Black Art

c. 1962

Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

A woman who writes feels too much, / those trances and portents!

Wickedly Yours,

Baba Yaga

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