Confessional Poetry

Steph P & Dani M

Definition

• The genuine strength of confessional poets, combined with the pity evoked by their high suicide rate, a romantic confusion between poetic excellence and inner torment

• Berryman, Plath, Sexton all committed suicide

Berryman

Definition cont.

• Confessional poetry is a type of lyric and narrative verse

• It deals with intimate experiences and facts of poets own life

Plath Family

Elements and Style

• Private experiences with feelings about death, trauma, depression, and relationships were addressed in this type of poetry

• “I” is used more than “you”

Sylvia Plath

Daddy

You do not do, you do not doAny more, black shoeIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time--Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toeBig as a Frisco seal

DaddyThe first two stanzas of the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath are simple and sound more like a strange nursery rhyme than an angry vision of her father. The rhyme scheme in “Daddy” lulls the reader into a hypnotic state and the language is free from the kind of dark imagery and terms in the poem. This nursery rhyme’s innocence is destroyed with the images and language of Nazism and several references to horrible wars. Although the reader of the poem gets the impression of the “daddy” depicted in the poem, he does not exist outside of images of men from history or historical photographs.

Sylvia Plath’s father

Anne SextonBaby Picture

It's in the heart of the grapewhere that smile lies.It's in the good-bye-bow in the hairwhere that smile lies.It's in the clerical collar of the dresswhere that smile lies.What smile? The smile of my seventh year, caught here in the painted photograph.

It's peeling now, age has got it, a kind of cancer of the backgroundand also in the assorted features.It's like a rotten flagor a vegetable from the refrigerator, pocked with mold.I am aging without sound, into darkness, darkness.

Anne, who are you?

I open the veinand my blood rings like roller skates.I open the mouthand my teeth are an angry army.I open the eyesand they go sick like dogswith what they have seen.I open the hairand it falls apart like dust balls.I open the dressand I see a child bent on a toilet seat.I crouch there, sitting dumblypushing the enemas out like ice cream, letting the whole brown worldturn into sweets.

Anne, who are you?

Merely a kid keeping alive.

Baby Picture• Her poem is a

representation of the depression and self doubt as well as torment of her existence that she has experienced in her own life.

• The last line of her poem is possibly the most powerful in the entire work. It shows her raw, intense confusion about who she is and how she is possibly going to make it in what she most likely considered the cruel game of life

Baby Picture

Sources

• http://typesofpoetry99.blogspot.com/2009/03/american-confessional-poetry-movement.html