Live or Die
Sexton's Pulitzer-winning collection, arranged in order of composition as a journal of suicidal crisis, survival, and ambivalent recovery. Where Plath burns with cold anger, Sexton is warmer and more direct; her confessional mode is more nakedly therapeutic. "Wanting to Die" is one of the most honest poems ever written about depression's seduction. Her witchcraft and fairy tale sequences (in Transformations) came later; Live or Die is the rawest.
Sexton's nakedness is the strength and the liability: arranged as a journal, the collection includes the slack diary entries along with the lightning, and some poems read like therapy transcripts with line breaks. Where Plath compresses, Sexton sprawls. The closing poem wills its affirmation into being, and you can hear the effort over the conviction.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
