ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the omnipotent fantasies in Anne Sexton's life and those which drove many of her poems. She lamented the tortures she endured as a result of the heightened sensitivity required to create art. "A woman who writes feels too much," she wrote in "The Black Art". She strove to transform the world through the magical ability of stringing together the perfect sequence of words. She believed that her psychoanalytic treatment offered her access to the unconscious part of her mind – both beautiful and repulsive – from which rich poetic truths flowed. Her creativity burned bright across the span of her life in the flames of omnipotence forged in the utter helplessness she experienced in her earliest relationships. She described her initial interest in becoming a poet as an attempt to be lovable and to feel loved. Her poems often articulated her fantasies of both creating life and taking it away through the command of her words.
