The Confessional Postmodern Poet

THE CONFESSIONAL POSTMODERN POET

With World War II finally over and a chapter in history written, the next chapter is about to begin. The twentieth century brings with it a new literary movement called postmodern, where poetry is "breaking from modernism" and taking on a whole new style Within postmodern poetry emerge confessional poets whom remove the mask that has masked poetry from previous generations and their writings become autobiographical in nature detailing their life's most intense personal experiences, therefore becoming the focus of their work.

Considered to be the "mainstream of postmodern poetry" confessional poetry did not hit its peak until the late twentieth century. Confessional poetry is in direct contrast to the poetry of William Butler Yeats. Yeats poetry, Romantic in nature, depended on symbols and images to convey his themes. Confessional poetry is very direct and conveys the inner most feelings of the post modern poets. The twentieth century brought forth many confessional and post confessional poets who appeared to be embarking on unmarked territory. Confessional poets Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roehtke and post confessional poet Adreinne Rich all dealt with taboo subjects. Their life held an intensity of personal experience that became the focus of their work. Confessional poetry does not simply touch upon emotion. Confessional poetry allows emotion or looks at emotion through an examining eye rather to drive poems, permeating each poem with an air of necessity, the necessity of conveying and aiming to understand emotion through confession.

Postmodern poet, Robert Lowell's poetry really captures the true essence of confessional poetry by sharing his own raw emotions with the reader. The mask that once was placed upon the influence of the symbolist, Eliot and Pound, Lowell removes. The speaker of his poems is unequivocally himself. Lowell does not spare himself in his poetry. In his poem "Man and Wife" he deals directly with his own marriage. The reader gets grotesque glimpses into his marital life. He begins "Tamed by Miltown, we lie on mother's bed." And later tells how "All night I have held your hand,/ as if you had/ a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad-/ its hackneyed speech, its homicidal eye-/ and dragged me home alive". Lowell shares the details surrounding his marriage that has grown stagnate and silent over the years and is no longer healthy. "Skunk Hour" is another poem where Lowell does not spare the details surrounding his personal inner anguish where he confesses "I myself am hell; nobody's here.(35-36).

Postmodern poet Sylvia Plath, is like Robert Lowell for she "centers much of her poetry on intensely personal and forbidden subjects" (593). According to the anthology, Plath's work exemplifies the "agonizing yet creative relationship between pain and creativity" (593). Plath was always trying to transcend the life she actually had. Her works hit on taboo subjects. Her poem "Daddy" translates a private message about the hurt her father has caused her and the intolerable hurt into a public message. She realizes the hurt her father has caused her over her life. Her writing is a form of therapy for her. By not mincing her words her intentions are clear and she is able to get rid of the hurt from her father once and for all. She writes: "Daddy, I have had to kill you./ you died before I had time" (6-7). In her poem "Lady Lazarus," she converts life into art by revealing her long escalating drive toward suicide:

Is it an art, like everything else

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