Poem "The Starry Night" By Anne Sexton

The Starry Night
By Anne Sexton

"That does not keep me from having a terrible need of-shall I say the word-religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars." Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother.

The town does not exist
except where a black hair tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry night this is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are alive.
Even the moon bulges in it's orange irons
to push children, like a god from it's eye
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night
sucked up by the great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

When I read this poem I felt that it was really different from other poems I've read. I doesn't really have a rhyming scheme to it. It has six lines in the first two stanzas then in the last stanza there is only 5 lines. This poem is an Ekphrasis poem and a Confessional poem. A ekphrasis poem is a poem that describes a mute work of visual art. A confessional poem is a detailed poem about a poet's personal life. It's a mix of both.

The first stanza is a description of Van Gogh painting. Like the cypress tree as a drowning woman into the hot night sky. It also says that the night boils with eleven stars, those are the eleven stars in the painting. It also says that the town doesn't exist, it is silent, that's the town painted on Van Gogh's painting.

The second stanza is to describe how the night sky felt to either the poet or the painter himself. It says it moves they are all alive. I think that means the sky and everything in it are all alive. Then it says "like a god from its eye", I think this was to show the religious side of him that he felt he so desperately needed.

The last stanza is to show and express how it is that he wants to die. "Into that rushing beast of the night" I think he wanted to be one with the sky. He wanted to be sucked up by that great dragon, the beast of the night. "To split from life with no flag, no belly, no cry," he was letting himself die and let go, relax into the deep sleep which would be death for him.