Anne Sexton's poem "After Auschwitz" is a powerful emotional response to the Holocaust and slaughter of 6 million innocent Jewish men, women and children.. The speaker expresses anger towards the atrocities committed and questions why death doesn't seem to take those who deserve it. She condemns the men responsible for the Holocaust and suggests that all humanity must now bear guilt. For the depravity that the Nazis exhibited, demonstrated that all of us are capable of the same and that is a burden humanity must forever bear.
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Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8:00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.
Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his anus.
Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.
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