The Starry Night: A Poem

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry.

Inspired by Van Gogh’s painting, the American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974) wrote a dark poem reflecting her suicidal feelings. She suffered from bipolar disorder which lead to self-injury and ultimately suicide [Crosby 1996, p 3-4]. The contrast between the bright, ‘alive’ moon and stars and the poet’s desire to die is a central theme of the poem.

It is curious that she starts with a quote from one of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother mentioning the need for religion. As Van Gogh was not religious, this ‘religion’ can reflect the need for help from a sacred, supernatural and eternal source. By creating art, the beauty of the world through the painting or poem is eternalized and the artist can escape the pain of the world. For her, ‘the town does not exist’, which can be interpreted as her view that human life and settlement are not important.

Describing the painting further, Sexton compares the black-haired tree to a drowned woman, which could refer to herself who has passed away. Indeed, the tree looks almost like wet hair. Although the night and stars are boiling and alive, the town is non-existent and silent, which for her are the circumstances in which she wants to die. This is emphasized by twice mentioning: ‘This is how/ I want to die’. It is a violent scene, the moon pushes children ‘like a god’ and ‘an old, unseen serpent swallows up the stars’ in her desired world.

The violence goes on, as Sexton does not want to die in a calm matter, rather: ‘sucked up by that great dragon, to split/ from my life’. This desire to be overpowered by a force greater than herself, nature’s brute force, is for her a release from the burden of life [Zambrotta 2019, Accessed 17/09/2020]. Ending with ‘no flag, no belly, no cry.’, Sexton makes clear she will not die as a victim. No flag can stand for the absence of patriotism or religion. No belly can refer to her femininity, as the belly is the place of the womb, so she does not want the ability to produce the start of a life [Zambrott, Ibid]. No cry can translate to the desire of dying without surrender, pain, defiance, or crying, but rather on her own terms.

Both Van Gogh and Sexton were suicidal artists, which might have been a reason for Sexton to specifically translate this painting to a poem. This is an intermedial translation from a non-verbal to a verbal medium. The poet translates her mental state by looking at the painting and then expresses her feelings into words.

The Starry Night can be seen as a story of life and death, where the eternality of the artwork does not cease, although the artists, sadly and silently, have passed away.