Frank Hecker

This Sunday night: An upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother suffers from severe postpartum depression, is hospitalized for it, and as part of her treatment is encouraged by her therapist to write. A not so unusual story, but in this case the writer is Anne Sexton, who became one of the most honored and popular poets of the latter half of the twentieth century, before her death by suicide at the age of 45. She’s best known for her confessional poetry and for Transformations, her arch take on the tales made famous by the Brothers Grimm. However, since it’s Christmas Eve today I thought I’d feature the first poem in her series “The Jesus Papers,” titled “Jesus Suckles”: