"Her Kind," by Anne Sexton, is based on an extended
metaphor of a witch. The speaker compares herself to a "possessed witch" who has
ventured out into the night, inhabited warm caves, and been hurt and tortured by the
person to whom the poem is addressed. The rhythm and the meter of the poem reflect the
haunting chant of a witch, which serve to propel the poem to its bitter conclusion.
Beginning the majority of the lines with a trochaic foot, Rich uses primarily trochaic
tetrameter. However, she breaks the rhythm from time to time with an anapestic or
dactylic foot, or an iambic line. You can see the break most clearly in the last two
lines of each stanza.
A wo' l man like that' l is not' l a wo' l man
quite' l
I have been' l her kind' l
In the way I read these
lines, the prevailing iambic meter of these last two lines is broken with an anapestic
foot, still in keeping with the chanting tone of the piece. The last line becomes a
two-foot line (dimeter). The poem moves by the lilting rhythm of the lines, the
repetition of "I have" at the beginning of the first and last lines of the stanza, and
the repetition of the monosyllabic words of the last line. The initial brave and
defiant witch becomes a misunderstood woman who has suffered much at the hands of
another (a former lover?) and is metaphorically ready to die.
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