Poll: Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath – Which Poet Would You Rather Bang?

Hot suicidal female poets: we all want to sleep with them. They’re like the sexy crazy girls who talk too loud and smoke clove cigarettes and who drink grain alcohol in the back room of the party. Or at least, I personally always want to sleep with these girls. But the question is, how to choose? Which one? Which one? So we here at Thought Catalog have picked the two hottest female poets, and present them here to you in a game of “Who would you rather?”

So… Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath? They’re both hot, they’re both sexy, they’re both dead. (Let’s ignore the dead part.) So… let’s break it down:

Anne Sexton

Date of birth: November 9, 1928

Place of birth: Newton, Massachusetts

Sexy job before she became a professional poet: Former professional model.

Awards won as a poet: Pulitzer, Guggenheim, National Book Award nominee.

Celebrity fans: Dave Matthews, Peter Gabriel, Morrissey.

She once took a writing class with: Sylvia Plath.

Method of suicide: Carbon monoxide poisoning. She had lunch with a friend, returned home, and committed suicide by locking herself in the garage and turning on the engine of her car. …Because she was less famous, and killed herself after Sylvia did, she was accused of committing suicide so that she could, quote, “be more like Sylvia Plath.” …She had tried to kill herself at least twice before.

Fun facts about Anne Sexton: Got married at age 18; committed incest with her daughter (probably). Used to use her high-heeled shoes as an ashtray.

A depressing poem by her is: ‘Wanting to Die.’

“…Suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.”

A good “sexy” poem by her is: ‘WHEN MAN ENTERS WOMAN’

When man
enters woman,
like the surf biting the shore,
again and again,
and the woman opens her mouth in pleasure
and her teeth gleam
like the alphabet,
Logos appears milking a star,
and the man
inside of woman
ties a knot
so that they will
never again be separate
and the woman
climbs into a flower
and swallows its stem
and Logos appears
and unleashes their rivers.

This man,
this woman
with their double hunger,
have tried to reach through
the curtain of God
and briefly they have,
though God
in His perversity
unties the knot.

Sylvia Plath

Date of birth: October 27, 1932

Place of birth: Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Sexy job before she was a professional poet: Was a model and guest editor for “Mademoiselle” magazine.

Awards won as a poet: Pulitzer prize, Fulbright.

Method of suicide: Stuck her head in an oven. (After sealing all the doors, and leaving breakfast out for her sleeping children.) …She had tried to kill herself at least three times before this.

Celebrity fans: Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Stiles, Joyce Carol Oates.

She once took a writing class with: Anne Sexton.

Fun facts about Sylvia Plath: The first time that she met her future husband, she was wearing diamond earrings. He ripped them out of her ears, making her bleed, and tossed the diamonds out a window! Her husband probably caused her suicide by cheating on her, but we’ll never know, ’cause he burned her last journals.

A depressing poem by her is: ‘Lady Lazarus.’

“Dying
Is an art, like everything else…”

A good “sexy” poem by her is: ‘NEVER TRY TO TRICK ME WITH A KISS’

Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.