Anne Sexton made a major contribution to the world of poetry in the courage with which she chose her subjects. In her verse, Sexton probes the deepest realms of her own psyche, using her most private experiences as the starting point for her work. Her poetry is at times so personal, in fact, that some her early literary friends urged her not to publish certain poems she had written. But with characteristic boldness, she did publish them, and she in doing so she opened the door of poetry to a wide new array of experience.