Anne Sexton was one of my first poet-crushes. As suggested in its epigraph, "The Starry Night" references Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting:

"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

As a reader and writer, I am particularly fond of ekphrastic poetry for the conversations it opens up between art forms. It's fascinating to see how poets' responses to visual art reflect their own preoccupations and obsessions as artists (such as Anne Sexton's consistent return to the subject of death), a reminder that, as Anais Nin said, we don't see things as they are, but as we are.