The Expatriates

Anne Sexton’s poem “The Expatriates” appears in her 1960 debut collection, To Bedlam and Part Way Back. Sexton is a key figure of the American Confessional poetry movement, and this personal lyric highlights many of the defining features of both her poetry and the Confessional movement. “The Expatriates” is an expression of loss and forbidden love.

Poet Biography

Anne Sexton was born in Massachusetts in 1928 as Anne Gray Harvey. She was the youngest of three daughters and spent much of her childhood in Boston. Her father’s success in business meant that her family was wealthy; despite this financial ease, Sexton’s childhood was difficult and fraught with emotional abuse. As a child, Anne’s closest family member was her unmarried great-aunt. In high school, Sexton left her family home to attend boarding school and one year of college. Before she turned 20, Anne married Alfred “Kayo” Sexton.

After her marriage, Sexton worked as a fashion model. She later had two daughters. Sexton also suffered a psychological breakdown that landed her in a psychiatric hospital around this time. Sexton received therapy, residing in and out of psychiatric hospitals for the remainder of her life, and it was in treatment that her therapist first encouraged her to write.