The American poet Anne Sexton first published "Her Kind" in her 1960 collection To Bedlam and Part Way Back (and always began her public readings with a performance of this poem). In it, a speaker inhabits a series of witchy personas who live outside restrictive patriarchal gender roles. Women whom society ostracizes for rejecting traditional femininity, the poem suggests, can nevertheless feel solidarity with each other.

• Read the full text of “Her Kind”

• “Her Kind” Summary

• “Her Kind” Themes

  • 

    Womanhood, Oppression, and Solidarity

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-21

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Her Kind”

  • Lines 1-2

    I have gone ...
    ... braver at night;   

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 3-5

    dreaming evil, I ...
    ... out of mind.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 6-7

    A woman like ...
    ... been her kind.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-12

    I have found ...
    ... rearranging the disaligned.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-14

    A woman like ...
    ... been her kind.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 15-17

    I have ridden ...
    ... bright routes, survivor 

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 18-21

    where your flames ...
    ... been her kind.

    

    

    

    

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• “Her Kind” Symbols

  • 

    Witches

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “I have gone out, a possessed witch,    / haunting the black air, braver at night;  ”
    • Lines 3-5: “dreaming evil, I have done my hitch    / over the plain houses, light by light:    / lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. ”
    • Lines 15-19: “I have ridden in your cart, driver, / waved my nude arms at villages going by,    / learning the last bright routes, survivor    / where your flames still bite my thigh / and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.   ”

• “Her Kind” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “I have”
    • Line 3: “I have”
    • Line 4: “light by light”
    • Line 6: “A woman like that is,” “woman”
    • Line 7: “I have been her kind.”
    • Line 8: “I have”
    • Line 13: “A woman like that is”
    • Line 14: “I have been her kind.”
    • Line 15: “I have”
    • Line 20: “A woman like that is”
    • Line 21: “I have been her kind.”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “haunting the black air”
    • Line 4: “over the plain houses”
    • Line 8: “the warm caves in the woods”
    • Line 16: “waved my nude arms at villages going by”
    • Line 17: “the last bright routes”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “gone,” “out”
    • Line 2: “haunting,” “night”
    • Line 3: “evil,” “done”
    • Line 4: “plain,” “light,” “light”
    • Line 5: “lonely,” “thing,” “twelve,” “fingered,” “out,” “mind”
    • Line 6: “woman,” “that,” “not,” “woman,” “quite”
    • Line 7: “been,” “kind”
    • Line 8: “warm,” “caves,” “woods”
    • Line 9: “filled,” “them,” “skillets,” “carvings,” “shelves”
    • Line 10: “closets,” “silks,” “innumerable,” “goods”
    • Line 11: “suppers,” “worms,” “elves”
    • Line 12: “whining,” “rearranging,” “disaligned”
    • Line 13: “woman,” “misunderstood”
    • Line 14: “been,” “kind”
    • Line 15: “have,” “ridden,” “cart,” “driver”
    • Line 16: “waved,” “arms,” “villages”
    • Line 17: “learning,” “last,” “bright,” “routes,” “survivor”
    • Line 18: “flames,” “still,” “bite”
    • Line 19: “ribs,” “crack,” “where,” “wind”
    • Line 20: “woman,” “not”
    • Line 21: “been,” “kind”

  • Assonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 3: “dreaming,” “evil”
    • Line 5: “thing,” “fingered”
    • Line 9: “filled,” “skillets”
    • Line 10: “silks”
    • Line 11: “fixed”
    • Line 12: “whining,” “disaligned”
    • Line 13: “misunderstood”
    • Line 17: “bright”
    • Line 18: “bite,” “thigh”
    • Line 19: “wind”
    • Line 20: “die”
    • Line 21: “kind”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “black,” “braver”
    • Line 3: “dreaming,” “done”
    • Line 8: “warm,” “caves,” “woods”
    • Line 9: “carvings”
    • Line 10: “closets”
    • Line 11: “worms”
    • Line 12: “whining”
    • Line 13: “woman”
    • Line 17: “learning,” “last”
    • Line 18: “where”
    • Line 19: “where,” “wheels,” “wind”
    • Line 20: “woman”

  • Allusion

    

    

    

    

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    Where allusion appears in the poem:

    • Lines 3-4: “dreaming evil, I have done my hitch    / over the plain houses, light by light”
    • Line 5: “lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.   ”
    • Line 11: “the worms and the elves”
    • Lines 15-20: “I have ridden in your cart, driver, / waved my nude arms at villages going by,    / learning the last bright routes, survivor    / where your flames still bite my thigh / and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.    / A woman like that is not ashamed to die.   ”

  • Parallelism

    

    

    

    

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    Where parallelism appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “I have”
    • Line 3: “I have”
    • Line 6: “A woman like that is,” “ not a woman, quite.”
    • Line 7: “I have been her kind.”
    • Line 8: “I have”
    • Line 13: “A woman like that is,” “ misunderstood.”
    • Line 14: “I have been her kind.”
    • Line 15: “I have”
    • Lines 18-19: “where your flames still bite my thigh / and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.  ”
    • Lines 20-21: “A woman like that is not ashamed to die.    / I have been her kind.”

• “Her Kind” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Possessed
  • Done my hitch
  • Twelve-fingered
  • Innumerable
  • The worms and the elves
  • Disaligned
  • Where your wheels wind
  • (Location in poem: Line 1: “a possessed witch,”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Her Kind”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Her Kind” Speaker

• “Her Kind” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Her Kind”

• More “Her Kind” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Witches and Feminism — Read a New York times article on the resurgence of witches in the public consciousness, and the witch as a feminist symbol.

    • A Short Biography — Read a biography of Sexton from the Poetry Foundation, and find links to more of her work.

    • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a 1966 recording of Anne Sexton reading "Her Kind."

    • An Introduction to Anne Sexton — Watch a USA Poetry documentary on Anne Sexton, in which she talks about getting started as a poet and reads from her work.

    • Sexton's Life — Read an article by Linda Sexton, Anne Sexton's daughter, that paints a complex and intimate portrait of the poet. 

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Anne Sexton

    • The Starry Night

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