Confessional Poetry

1
Confessional Poetry

• Sexton and Plath

2
Confessionalism

• Poetry that contains intimate and unsavory
  details from a poets actual life.
• Common themes illness, sexuality, despair yet,
  content not confessional in itself its the
  lack of meekness or shame.
• Propriety not a convention/goal.
• Poetry as cognitive therapy (Sexton)
• Less directly political
• Almost requires exaggeration of persona

3
Anne Sexton

• Married young, had two children who eventually
  she couldnt care for
• Manic depressive episodes
• Therapist suggested poetry quick success
• The work of writing poems helped her live until
  46 when she died.
• Thought of as the confessional poet.

4
Sextons aesthetic

• Uses rhyme to emphasize the ridiculousness of the
  idea of order
• Wrote about the experience of being a woman
• Broke taboos on many subjects drug use,
  abortion, menstruation

5
Angels of the Love Affair

• Why does Sexton organize the poem with numbers
  and angels?
• What strategies do you notice?
• Is it lyrical?

6
Sylvia Plath

• Greatly affected by the death of her father when
  she was eight years old.
• Scholar, exceptional student.
• Met and married British poet Ted Hughes, had two
  kids.
• Wrote The Bell Jar after Hughes left her.
• Probably most famous literary suicide (persona)

7
Plaths aesthetic

• Intense and violent imagery coupled with rhyme,
  alliteration, etc.
• Compressed language
• A lot of internal rhyme to create a driving voice

8
Two Lovers and a Beachcomber

• What is she arguing about love in this poem?
  (What does she try to persuade us is true?)
• What strategies does she use and why?
• Is this American?