A (Very) Brief History of Confessional Poetry

In 1959, Robert Lowell’s Life Studies was published, a collection that would later be described as “confessional” by critic M.L. Rosenthal. In his review of Life Studies, Rosenthal wrote that Lowell’s collection read as “a series of personal confidences, rather shameful, that one is honor-bound not to reveal.” He concluded with the following impression of Lowell’s collection: “[it is] impure art, magnificently stated but unpleasantly egocentric—somehow resembling the triumph of the skunks over the garbage can.” 

Ouch. Based on that review alone, one would assume Lowell’s work was incorrigibly self-centered and perhaps even too personal. 

Indeed, at first glance, Lowell’s poems are markedly different from the Romantic poets that came before him. Rather than hiding behind allusion and metaphor, Lowell brought so-called “taboo” topics to the forefront of his poetry. 

Lowell’s struggles with mental illness, his tumultuous relationship with his father, as well as his troubled marriage, are examined directly and written about with unflinching honesty throughout Life Studies. 

In one of his most well-known poems, “Skunk Hour,” Lowell writes: “My mind’s not right.” I’d argue that such a personal declaration wouldn’t have appeared in earlier poetry (or, if such a sentiment did appear, it would most certainly have been obscured by the poet). 

Though Rosenthal was apparently not a huge fan of the confessional mode, Robert Lowell’s influence can be seen in the work of Sylvia Plath, and elements of the confessional can also be seen in the poetry of Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, W.D. Snodgrass, and John Berryman. 

What Confessional Poetry Isn’t

Before continuing, I want to take a moment to unpack the idea that confessional poetry is somehow “unpleasantly egocentric,” as Rosenthal puts it. I strongly disagree! 

Though Rosenthal brings up some interesting points in his review of Life Studies, I think his initial definition—and subsequent dismissal—of the confessional mode is quite limiting and disregards the potential for confessional poetry to speak to a more universal human experience. 

While the work of “traditionally” confessional poets such as Lowell and Plath (and more contemporary poets such as Sharon Olds) examines particular sources of personal shame, guilt, and trauma, those sources aren’t inherently unique. 

For example, in her 1992 collection, The Father, Sharon Olds traces her father’s illness and death through a series of narrative poems. While the interactions between the speaker and her father throughout the collection are rooted in specifics, it can be argued that the collection moves beyond the personal and “egocentric” by addressing and grappling with the common human experience of death. 

While readers might not be able to identify with the specifics of Olds’s relationship with her father, they can identify, or empathize with, the emotions that arise out of a loved one’s illness and death. 

In other words, I am of the mind that, while confessional poetry is certainly personal, it is in the sharing and reading of the personal that we are able to connect outwards with others who’ve experienced something similar. 

Characteristics of Confessional-Style Poetry

The following isn’t meant to be a definitive list of what makes a confessional poem confessional. Instead, I’d describe it as a list of common characteristics of this type of poetry. 

Some poets and poems fit more comfortably into this category than others. As a matter of fact, I’d argue that many contemporary poets borrow a lot from the confessional mode—it’s a large umbrella! 

Contains autobiographical material. 

In writing Life Studies, Robert Lowell drew on personal experiences, including his mental health struggles as well as his marriage. 

Sylvia Plath drew on the similar subject matter in Ariel, but also expanded upon it. Her poem, “Lesbos,” for instance, reflects a venomous hatred towards the domestic. 

More contemporary poets, such as Kaveh Akbar and Sharon Olds, further expand on the “types” of personal subject matter explored in confessional poetry. Akbar, in Calling a Wolf a Wolf, grapples with alcoholism. Olds has often explored childhood abuse in her work. In Felon, Reginald Dwayne Betts writes about his incarceration. 

A prominent “lyric I.” 

The “lyric I” refers to the first-person speaker in a poem. When the “lyric I” appears in a poem, many assume that it is the poet speaking. For instance, when Sylvia Plath writes a poem using the “lyric I” to describe a troubled marriage, one might assume that she is writing about her own marriage to Ted Hughes. 

If you spot the first-person in a poem, it might be a clue that the poem is more personal in nature. 

However, it’s important to not always conflate a first-person speaker with the poet, as the “lyric I” can sometimes serve different functions within a poem (like in the personal poems of Patricia Smith). 

Writing Exercises

Now that you have a general idea of the history and common characteristics of confessional poetry, it’s time for you to try writing a confessional-style poem of your own. Here are some writing exercises to get you started: 

Exercise 1: One misconception about confessional poetry is that, in order to write something truly “confessional,” one must have experienced trauma or suffering. While it’s true that many confessional and post-confessional poets write about traumatic events, it is not a prerequisite to writing in this style. I’d argue that, at the heart of confessional poetry, is a self or “I” who is trying to express something, whether that be suffering or some other emotion. 

Your goal for this exercise is to write about an event that had a profound emotional impact on you. It does not need to be traumatic or upsetting in nature. Describe the event and emotions using figurative language. Play with the form of the poem. Invent a different “self” to insert into the poem. How do they behave? 

Exercise 2: A common theme in early confessional poetry is the idea of shame/guilt. Write about something you feel particularly ashamed of (and remember–you don’t need to share what you write with anyone if you don’t want to!). 

Tell us in the comments: Have you ever read confessional poetry? What did you think?

Manuela Williams lives and writes in Nevada. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and one paranormal fiction novella. When she’s not writing, Manuela loves reading romance novels, drinking *all* the coffee, and playing video games. You can find her on Twitter.

The post The Poet’s Toolbox: What is Confessional Poetry? appeared first on DIY MFA.

Before starting grad school, my “writing schedule” typically involved waiting around for the perfect idea to strike. I didn’t have a set writing schedule, and I spent a lot of time wandering around with half-formed images and unfinished poems rattling around in my brain. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this strategy (after all, it worked for me for several years!), it does make things a lot more difficult when you’re suddenly faced with a looming deadline. 

Now that I have a rough draft of a poetry manuscript due by the end of the summer, I can’t exactly sit around waiting for the great Muse to bless me with amazing ideas—I need to do some of that magical work myself. 

Before moving on, I want to pause and emphasize the importance of having, at the very least, dedicated writing time for yourself. For those of us who are also juggling jobs, school, and family commitments, this might mean you can only spare a couple hours a week. That is completely fine! As long as you are dedicating at least a little bit of your time to writing, and are consistent, it’ll get easier and easier to rely on yourself for generating inspiration and ideas rather than relying on the mysterious and fickle Muse to drop the perfect idea into your lap. 

Here are some of the strategies I’ve been using this summer to generate ideas and inspiration for my poetry manuscript. 

Breathe New Life into an Old Draft

I’ve got a folder on my computer named “Crappy Drafts” where I banish my most atrocious, embarrassing poems (or sometimes poems that are okay, but they’re missing that special something). If I’ve been staring at my computer screen for two hours with nothing to show for it, I turn to my “Crappy Drafts” folder to generate ideas and inspiration. 

A lot of the time, distance and time are all I need to turn a “crappy draft” into a magical, or if not magical, decent first draft. Here are a couple of the techniques I use when I’m really stuck and want to breathe new life into an old draft: 

1. Turn a traditionally lineated poem into a prose poem. 

This is a pretty simple exercise. You take an old draft that uses more traditional line and stanza breaks and, essentially, delete all those line and stanza breaks, forming a block or prose poem. 

Sometimes all it takes to see your draft in a new light is to radically change the form it takes. 

Alternatively, if you have a prose poem, you can try breaking it into lines and stanzas. I’ve had really bad prose poems suddenly take on a new life after I’ve broken them into lines. 

2. Cut a poem in half. 

I think this is one of my favorite strategies because there is just something so satisfying about cutting out all the fluffy or over-explanatory language in a poem. 

Think of this technique as a form of extreme editing. Take a draft poem and cut out at least half of the words or lines. Some words you might consider removing are transition words and any narrative connective tissue in the poem. 

Alternatively, you could also try adding in more. For example, if your poem is a page long, try writing another page, expanding on ideas you begin to explore in your original draft. 

Make a Word Collage

Lately I’ve been using a website called Magnetic Poetry for inspiration. Essentially, you’re given a digital “word bank” and, much like you’d do with a physical pile of random, cut-out words, you can arrange them on screen to form poetry. 

I think this is such a cool exercise because you aren’t given a lot of narrative connective tissue in your word bank. This helps me focus more on creating interesting images and metaphors. I wouldn’t say that I get complete poems from this exercise, but I’ve definitely come up with some unique imagery, which then sparks a fuller draft. 

If you’d rather not do this exercise online, you can easily recreate it by cutting out random words from old magazines and rearranging them to form minimalist poems or, at the very least, inspiring images and ideas. 

Find Inspiration in the Everyday

When I first started writing poetry, I felt a lot of self-imposed pressure to write about Big and Serious topics. I’m talking about things like death and love and loneliness. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent poems out there about these very topics, but they can also be challenging and intimidating to write. I think this is mainly because, by themselves, big events and emotions like death and love and loneliness can feel very abstract on the page. Especially if you’re trying to capture such universal experiences in one relatively short poem. 

I still find myself writing about these topics, however, they are scaled way down. How do I scale something like love or loneliness down in a poem? I use everyday experiences to make abstract emotions and events more accessible and relatable to my readers. 

For example, a while back, I really wanted to write a love poem for my partner. However, I didn’t want it to rely on abstractions or cliches. Instead of waxing poetic about the swelling emotions I experienced around my partner, I decided to show the love and tenderness between us by zooming in on a very specific moment in our day-to-day lives. This moment didn’t encompass our entire relationship; however, by focusing on such a small, everyday occurrence, I was able to really hone in on the love in that moment rather than trying to write about love in a more abstract, generalized way. 

Take a Break

Sometimes, you just need to take a break. I get this feeling when I’ve written every day for five days straight and, once I sit down at my desk on the sixth day, I just can’t. My brain feels fried and words won’t appear on the screen no matter how hard I try. 

In cases like these, it’s perfectly acceptable to take a break from everything writing related. I like to think that our brains need time in the “real world” in order to recuperate and gather more inspiration. 

So, if you feel burned out and like you can’t write a single word more, I say take a break! Go for a walk, read one of your favorite books, or cook a delicious meal. And, once you’ve taken a couple days off to recover, get back to work. 

You might be surprised by what you come up with once you’re fully rested! 

What other exercises do you use to generate ideas and inspiration for your poetry? 

Manuela Williams lives and writes in Nevada. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and one paranormal fiction novella. When she’s not writing, Manuela loves reading romance novels, drinking *all* the coffee, and playing video games.

The post The Poet’s Toolbox: Generate Ideas and Inspiration appeared first on DIY MFA.

What are Line Breaks?

To better understand how line breaks function, and what they can do for your poetry, I think it’s helpful to first consider Kim Adonizzio and Dorianne Laux’s definition in The Poet’s Companion: “…think of line breaks as effects; learn the different effects you can achieve, and then decide which you want.” 

Unless you’re writing in more traditional forms—such as the haiku or villanelle—that have syllabic restrictions, a set rhyme scheme, or other defined pattern, line breaks are generally not governed by hard and fast rules. Instead, it’s up to you as the poet to decide when and how to break a line. 

Rather than thinking of line breaks as purely random, it might be helpful to think of them as ways to enhance your poem. An enjambed line, for example, can help create a feeling of continuous movement in your poem. Irregular line breaks can be used to create a sense of surprise or tension within the poem. Again, as Adonizzio and Laux state in The Poet’s Companion, line breaks should be viewed as effects, and when you are familiar with the different effects line breaks can have on your poetry, you can use them to your advantage. 

Today I want to specifically focus on line length, enjambment, and end stops. I’ll talk about what each of these techniques can do for your poetry, as well as some of the writing exercises I use to experiment with line breaks in my own work. 

Line Length

If you’re writing a poem using a more traditional form, particularly one with syllabic restrictions, line length is oftentimes determined for you. The haiku is one example of this, as the line length is determined by syllables—the first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the final line has five syllables. The sestina is another example of a form that has a set length as it consists of thirty-nine lines—all typically of the same length. However, if you’re not working within one of these forms, line length is completely up to you! Your poem can be written using short lines, long lines, medium lines, or even a mix of all three. 

Although every reader and writer of poetry is different, one way to look at the effect line length has on a poem is in the ways it either slows or speeds up the reading of the poem. Typically, longer lines are read at a much faster pace than shorter lines. Short lines tend to slow down a reader’s eye, especially if you’re also spacing these lines farther apart on the page. 

Long lines can also create the effect of breathlessness or urgency in a poem, especially if you also omit punctuation. Short lines can create more tension in a poem and, depending on where you place them on the page, it can also create a feeling of disjointedness. You can also choose to vary your line lengths, placing emphasis on the way they physically appear on the page. 

Line Enjambment

An enjambment is a phrase or line that carries over into the next line, like what appears in Louise Glück’s poem “Prism”: 

Who can say what the world is? The world

is in flux, therefore

unreadable, the winds shifting,

the great plates invisibly shifting and changing—

In the above example, the first line ends in the middle of the phrase “The world,” and carries over into the second line. By ending the first line on “The world,” the thought is incomplete, creating tension in the stanza. The final word of the line, “world,” is not followed by any kind of punctuation—a period or comma, for example—which places less emphasis on the final word and, instead, creates a sense of forward momentum, drawing the reader’s eye more quickly to the second line. 

Enjambed lines are an excellent tool to use if you want to amplify tension in your poem, and, much like using longer lines to create a sense of breathlessness or urgency in a poem, enjambment can be used in much the same way.

End-Stopped Lines

End-stopped lines are lines that end where a pause might occur, such as at the end of a sentence or thought. Most of the time, end-stopped lines are marked by periods, commas, semicolons, or hyphens. Natalie Diaz uses end-stopped lines in her poem “From the Desire Field”:

I don’t call it sleep anymore.

I’ll risk losing something new instead—

like you lost your rosen moon, shook it loose. 

The above three lines are all end-stopped lines—they are complete thoughts or phrases ending in periods or, in the case of the second line, a hyphen. Notice also how Diaz uses stanza breaks. Instead of closing the space between the second and third line, Diaz utilizes a stanza break; in the full poem, the third line stands on its own as a one line stanza. Not only does this draw the reader’s eye to the single line, but the space also disrupts the momentum of the sentence, causing the reader to pause longer between “instead—” and “like.”

End-stopped lines are good to use if you’re looking to create a sense of closure, or completeness, in your poetry, although that’s certainly not all they’re good for! End-stopped lines can also be used to slow down the rhythm of a poem. 

Writing Exercises 

Now that you have a better understanding of the different effects line breaks can have on your poetry, try practicing these different techniques in your own work. Here are a couple exercises to get you started: 

1. Take a short section of prose—something that you’ve written yourself or from a writer that you admire—and break it into both enjambed and end-stopped lines. Pay close attention to the effect your line breaks have on the reading of the prose—both on the page and out loud. Note also how the meaning of the prose might change slightly depending on where you decide to break the lines.

2. Take a poem that you’ve already written—or one that you admire—and try rearranging the lines so that they’re all enjambed, except for the final line. What effect does this have on the poem? 

3. Similar to the previous prompt, take a poem and rearrange the lines so that most, if not all of them, are end-stopped. What effect does this create? 

Manuela Williams lives and writes in Nevada. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and one paranormal fiction novella. When she’s not writing, Manuela loves reading romance novels, drinking *all* the coffee, and playing video games.

The post The Poet’s Toolbox: Line Breaks appeared first on DIY MFA.