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Issue 9 w/ Emily Blewitt

Poets have never shied away from controversial subject matter (the traditional function of the limerick form, for example, is the breaking of taboos), but perhaps it was the emergence of the ‘confessional’ school of Lowell, Plath, Sexton et al. in the mid-20th century that saw poetry become a medium where our deepest and darkest can be addressed.

Though he was certainly not the first poet to write ‘confessionally’, the term ‘confessional poetry’ was first used in a review of Robert Lowell’s collection Life Studies (1959). Lowell’s exploration of his struggles with mental health and a troubled marriage captured the attention of the reading public, and soon other poets (including Lowell’s students Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton) began to write about previously-unspoken elements of their private lives. Although the poems were written through an autobiographical lens, these experiences with abuse, trauma and depression were not unique to these poets, and so this self-revelatory ‘confessional’ verse in turn also gave voice to readers who had lived through similar ordeals.

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