Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Anne Sexton's poem "The Expatriates" is an exploration of memory, displacement, and the ephemeral nature of love. Through the use of vivid and often surreal imagery, Sexton reflects on a past moment that holds deep emotional significance, yet is fleeting and difficult to fully grasp. The poem is suffused with a sense of longing and an awareness of the impermanence of both physical and emotional landscapes.

The poem begins with an address to a beloved, "My dear," which sets an intimate and reflective tone. The speaker describes a moment worth "clutch[ing] at for a moment," emphasizing the transitory nature of the experience. This moment is presented as something that must be held onto, not just for its own sake, but because "believing is the act of love." Here, Sexton suggests that love is deeply intertwined with memory and the ability to hold onto fleeting experiences, even as they fade into the past.

The setting of the poem is a "false New England forest," populated by "misplanted Norwegian trees" that "refused to root." This artificial, experimental landscape becomes a powerful metaphor for displacement and alienation. The trees, with their "thick synthetic roots barging out of the dirt to work the air," symbolize a sense of disconnection from the natural world, as well as the artificiality of the environment in which the speaker and their companion find themselves. The image of the couple holding hands and "walk[ing] on our knees" suggests a kind of submission or struggle, as if they are navigating a world that is not truly theirs, a place where they are "too alien to know / our sameness and how our sameness survives."

Sexton contrasts the artificial forest with the everyday life outside it, where "village cars followed / the white line we had carefully walked / two nights before toward our single beds." This juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial, the intimate and the mundane, highlights the tension between the speaker's inner world and the external reality. The couple's retreat into the woods becomes a space of vulnerability and connection, as they "lay halfway up an ugly hill," a place where they could fall, both literally and metaphorically. Yet, it is also a place where the beloved "held me well," suggesting that even in this uncertain and dying landscape, there is comfort and intimacy.

As the poem progresses, the speaker reflects on the passage of time and the inevitable fading of the moment they shared. The line "And now I must dream the forest whole" indicates a desire to reconstruct the experience in memory, to hold onto the warmth and connection they felt, despite the "stopped trees" and the dying woods around them. The speaker's vision of "our house, its pillars a dim basement of men / holding up their foreign ground for you and me" evokes a sense of both stability and displacement, as if the foundation of their relationship is built on uncertain, "foreign" ground.

The poem concludes with a sense of urgency: "My dear, it was a time, / butchered from time, / that we must tell of quickly / before we lose the sound of our own / mouths calling mine, mine, mine." The phrase "butchered from time" suggests that the moment they shared was cut off, isolated from the flow of time, yet also vulnerable to being forgotten or lost. The repetition of "mine, mine, mine" underscores the possessive and desperate desire to hold onto this memory, to keep it alive through the act of telling, even as it slips further into the past.

"The Expatriates" is a meditation on the fragility of memory and the ways in which we attempt to preserve moments of love and connection in a world that is often indifferent or hostile. Sexton's use of an artificial forest as the setting for this memory highlights the theme of displacement and the struggle to find meaning and connection in a world that can feel alien and temporary. The poem captures the bittersweet nature of love and memory, where the act of remembering is both an affirmation of love and a recognition of its impermanence.

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