“ Silently / pulling for itself, / the will wants the body to // give it what it wants,” Sexton writes in “ Between the Car and the Sea,” at once a description of a car’ s body propelling her onward, and of the poet herself, the one behind the wheel of this masterful fourth collection. In an extraordinary act of volition, the author does not stop at the trope of ambition, but powers instead toward the urgent concerns of the will, and intention.
In Drive, Sexton explores our most fragile points of connection— to lovers and family, to the living and the dead, and to oneself, one’ s own life’ s work— with the care and wisdom of one who knows these roads. In her hands, these delicate boundaries become navigable. They are both her route and her destination.