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WORKSHOPS » POETRY » ANNE SEXTON, "THE FURY OF OVERSHOES" » RE-READING
Anne Sexton, "The Fury of Overshoes"
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Re-Reading Questions
Text on p. 822 of the full Ninth Edition
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They sit in a row
outside the kindergarten,
black, red, brown, all
with those brass buckles.
Remember when you couldn't
buckle your own
overshoe
or tie your own
shoe
or cut your own meat
and the tears
running down like mud
because you fell off your
tricycle?
Remember, big fish,
when you couldn't swim
and simply slipped under
like a stone frog?
The world wasn't
yours.
It belonged to
the big people.
Under your bed
sat the wolf
and he made a shadow
when cars passed by
at night.
They made you give up
your nightlight
and your teddy
and your thumb.
Oh overshoes,
don't you
remember me,
pushing you up and down
in the winter snow?
Oh thumb,
I want a drink,
it is dark,
where are the big people,
when will I get there,
taking giant steps
all day,
each day
and thinking
nothing of it?
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Re-Reading Questions
1. The poem is written by someone who is no longer a child. How and why is its style childlike?
2. Why is the focus on overshoes and not some other clothing? Look at the two separated images of overshoes, at first disembodied and then on her feet. What do these steps in the snow mean to the child? To the adult writing the poem? What does she wish for herself now?
3. This poem is part of a series of "Furies" poems from Sexton's final book, The Death Notebooks. These poems speak of other furies—of beautiful bones, of guitars and sopranos, of cooks, even of Sundays, sunsets, and sunrises—and they often reveal a great deal of anger and frustration. Do you see these emotions in this poem?
4. Soon after she wrote this poem, Anne Sexton succeeded in killing herself, after years of trying. Although a poet's life isn't necessarily reflected in her poems, Sexton's poems are heavily personal and confessional. How does knowing something about her life and death affect your reading of the poem? Do you see anything in the poem that you might have missed before?
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