  Poetry
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What do poets Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and W. D. Snodgrass bring to mind? Well, picture yourself in the latter part of the 50s and throughout the 60s. The winds of change blew through most cities and towns in America. Rock and Roll was infiltrating households and baby boomers were now teenagers (a word that came into common usage during this era). Wholesome goodness that guided parents was now at odds with the rebelliousness of their children. During this time, Hollywood changed from making black and white films to producing motion pictures in color and the “studio” system saw its end. Movie stars were immortalized on the Walk of Fame and were influential in setting trends that teenagers embraced.
During this same time period, these poets were exploring a new type of poetry that revolved around intimate personal experiences. The movement became known as Confessional Poetry and still influences many writers today.
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Confessional Poetry
In 1959, M. L. Rosenthal, reviewed Robert Lowell’s book Life Studies for The Nation magazine and titled his article “Poetry as Confession,” thus naming a movement that included, among others, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Berryman and W. D. Snodgrass. Though these poets didn’t necessarily see themselves as part of a movement, that is, in fact, what it became, and Robert Lowell is considered, by most, to be the father.
Confessional or Autobiographical Poetry, as it’s sometimes referred to, utilizes a poet’s own personal (sometimes traumatic) experiences as fodder for their poems. It’s called confessional because, during the era it emerged (1950s and 1960s), the topics it addressed were considered taboo and were likely to only be revealed to a priest during confession. Controversial subjects such as divorce, abortion, mental illness and drug addiction were not discussed in formal, post-WWII, polite society and certainly not written about, on an extremely personal level, by most writers.
Lowell, hospitalized in 1954 for manic depression, was encouraged by his doctors to write about his childhood. He avidly read the work of William Carlos Williams, which wasn’t as strict as many poets of the day, and, it is said, Lowell sited Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, as another influence over his own work. (Ginsberg wrote the epic poem Howl, which was first performed in San Francisco in 1955 and published in 1956.) All of these factors influenced the nature of his poetry and revitalized his work. Life Studies received many accolades and in 1960 it won the National Book Award.
Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass and Sylvia Plath, other touted Confessional poets, brought fresh faces to the poetry landscape. Their in-depth, straight forward, personalized treatment of unconventional topics paved the way for the poets of today to express themselves in ways never before imagined. These imaginative and self-reflective souls, who dared to deviate from the norm, have left us with some of the best poetry written in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Let your love of poetry shine!
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Poetry: January 03, 2007 Issue [#1471]
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