Confessional Poetry Essay - 1640 Words

Confessional poetry is a style that emerged in the late 1950’s. Poetry of this type tends to be very personal and emotional. Many confessional poets dealt with subject matter that had previously been taboo. Death, trauma, mental illness, sexuality, and numerous other topics flowed through the works of the poetry from this movement. Confessional poetry was not purely autobiographical, but did often express deeply disturbing personal experience. (Academy of American Poets) Three important poets who are typically associated with the confessional poetry movement are Anne Sexton, Allen Ginsberg, and Denise Levertov. An analysis of selected works from these poets yields a deeper insight into the individual poets and the broad†¦show more content†¦Much of her poetry deals with topics such as sexual abuse, suicide, addiction, relationships, and sexuality. Of interest is the liberated feminist aspect of her work which can be seen in such poems as â€Å"The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator†. Throughout her adult life, and until her death in 1974, Anne Sexton plied her unique brand of poetry as a form of therapy and expression. Sexton stated: My analyst told me to write between our sessions about what I was feeling and thinking and dreaming. (Poetry Foundation) â€Å"45 Mercy Street† is an example of Anne Sexton’s late work, just prior to her suicide. Released in a posthumous collection, this poem extends past the idea of confession. â€Å"45 Mercy Street† is a pure cry for help from a tortured psyche which has already decided that death is the only viable escape. Sexton’s work is a case study in severe depression and bipolar disorder. Regarding her classification as a confessional poet, Sexton often disliked the term, yet still applied it to herself on occasion. In an interview with Patricia Marx, Sexton stated: If anything influenced me it was W. D. Snodgrass Hearts Needle.... It so changed me, and undoubtedly it must have influenced my poetry. At the same time everyone said, You cant write this way. Its too personal; its confessional; you cant write this, Anne, and everyone wasShow MoreRelated Confessional Poetry Essay1738 Words   |  7 PagesConfessional Poetry I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it – A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face featureless, fine Jew linen. This excerpt comes from the poem â€Å"Lady Lazarus† by Sylvia Plath, one of the most famous – and infamous – poets of the 20th century. Many of Plath’s poems, such as this one, belong to a particular school ofRead MoreThe Confessional Style Of Poetry1009 Words   |  5 PagesRupi Kaur’s collection of confessional poems, Milk and Honey, shows her feelings towards poetry as an art. It explains how the confessional style of poetry allows artists to transform their pain and feelings into art. Art is always changing, new ideas are brought about, artists create with different purposes. The art of poetry is constantly evolving, poets introduce different ideas and styles based on the message they are trying to portray. The confessional style of poetry is one that allows the poetRead MoreThe Confessional Mode Of Poetry Essay1454 Words   |  6 Pages During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the confessional mode of poetry, coined by M.L. Rosenthal in 1959, emerged in the United States as a reaction to New criticism and Modernism, the dominant literary theories at that time. 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Specific objectives (stated in observableRead MoreAnne Sexton Confessional Poetry Analysis1192 Words   |  5 Pages Her style of poetry, confessional poetry, was used in a way to connect with her audience as stated above, and without it, she would have been unable to achieve the level of rapport necessary to reach her popularity. Confessional poetry is the poetry of the personal or I, and it began to emerge in the late 50s and early 60s (A Brief Guide to Confessional Poetry). It is associated with poets like Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, etc., with Lowell playing teacher forRead MoreConfessional Mode in Poetry of Kamala Das3267 Words   |  14 PagesCONFESSIONAL MODE IN POETRY OF KAMALA DAS Confessional mode of writing has its virtual origin in the mid50s in America. It is hybrid mode of poetry which means objective, analytical or even clinical observation of incidents from one’s own life. Confessional poems are intensely personal and highly subjective. There is no ‘persona’ in the poems. ‘I’ in the poems is the poet and nobody else. The themes are nakedly embarrassing and focus too exclusively upon the pain, anguish and ugliness of life atRead MoreSylvia Plath: The Exemplary Confessional Poet1015 Words   |  5 PagesEmerging in the 1950s and 1960s, confessional poetry was essentially an autobiographical style of writing. Often focusing on topics that were taboo at the time like mental illness and suicide, it is no surprise that Sylvia Plath wrote poetry in this style. Plath suffered from depression most of her life and used writing as an outlet (Spinello). In her works â€Å"Cut,† â€Å"I Am Vertical,† and â€Å"Lady La zarus,† Plath exemplifies confessional poetry through the themes of resentment, death, and mental illnessRead MoreBreaking Up With Daddy: Sylvia Plath on Human Relations958 Words   |  4 PagesAs is inherent within the tradition of confessional poetry, a subgenre of lyric poetry which was most prominent from the fifties to the seventies (Moore), Sylvia Plath uses the events of her own tragic life as the basis of creating a persona in order to examine unusual relationships. An excellent example of this technique is Plath’s poem â€Å"Daddy† from 1962, in which she skilfully manipulates both diction, trope and, of course, rhetoric to create a character which, although separate from Plath herselfRead MoreSylvia Plath is an American Writer who Writes Confessional Poems about her Life1117 Words   |  4 PagesSylvia Plath is an American writer, commonly known for her poetry works. Her poetry can be categorized as â€Å"confessional poetry†, which are poems a bout the poet’s personal life. Her two most famous published collections of poems are The Colossus and Other Poemsand Ariel, but it was not until after Plath’s death that The Bell Jarwas published. The Bell Jar is considered a more personal and semi-autobiographical novel. Throughout Sylvia Plath’s lifetime, she suffered mentally since she was a little