Confessional Poetry

Anne Sexton

Confessional Poetry (1950s-70s) in America

The name Confessional Poetry is pretty intuitive – the poets in this movement were revealing details of their own lives such as mental illness, relationships, troubles, etc. Confessional Poetry is a branch of Confessionalism. There is no manifesto for this school of poetry, although Confessionalism is another concept, and writings on that could act as a manifesto.

A confessional poem will typically share intimate details about the poet’s life. Poems are often about mental illness, sexuality, family, relationships, despondence, etc. Confessional poetry offered details that poets had typically shied away from until the school developed.

Confessional poetry came about during a time of change for America, as the country was experiencing major cultural changes in the 1960s, and as we ended one war and began another as the period ended. Confessional poetry was this new, open art form that was appropriate for the time.

Important poets in this school are: Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Ezra Pound, and John Berryman.

Robert Lowell (1917-1977) was born in Boston and attended Harvard and Kenyon College. He served a prison term for being a conscientious objector during WWII. His work often focused on his time in New England, and his own family history. He published three books that dealt with his personal life, which are Land of Unlikeness (1944), Lord Weary’s Castle (1946), and Life Studies (1959). He went on to produce several other collections, that were both confessional poetry, and other styles. Lowell is in our text on pages: 10, 55, 266, 286, 522.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) wrote Ariel, a collection of poetry as well as her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. She won a Fullbright to Cambridge and received her MA in 1957. She committed suicide in 1963 and was survived by her husband, English poet Ted Hughes and her two young children. Plath is in our text on pages: 21, 554, 555, 558.

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) studied with Robert Lowell and wrote several collections of poetry. Many of her poems record her battles with mental illness that lead to her suicide in 1974. That year, she published her last collection, The Death Notebooks. Other works include To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960), All My Pretty Ones (1962), Selected Poems (1964) and Love Poems (1969) to name a few. Anne Sexton is not found in our anthology.

W.D. Snodgrass (1926-) was one of the first Americans to write Confessional Poetry. His first collection Heart’s Needle and Other Poems (1959) won a Pulitzer prize. After this first book, Snodgrass went on to create a “poetic alter ego” who taught at Wayne State University and produce a collection called Remains (1970) under the name S.S. Gardens. He later put out a revised edition as himself in 1985. Snodgrass wrote nine more collections of poetry. W.D. Snodgrass is not found in our anthology.

Just Once

Just once I knew what life was for.

In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;

walked there along the Charles River,

watched the lights copying themselves,

all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening

their mouths as wide as opera singers;

counted the stars, my little campaigners,

my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love

on the night green side of it and cried

my heart to the eastbound cars and cried

my heart to the westbound cars and took

my truth across a small humped bridge

and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home

and hoarded these constants into morning

only to find them gone.

-Anne Sexton

This poem by Sexton is a prime example of confessional poetry. She speaks of her own troubles, clearly. She implies that she doesn’t want to be alive, and she talks about crying to others, about the idea of leaving, and about scars.