Confessional Poetry (Core Course in Poetry)

שירה וידויית

M. L. Rosenthal first applied the term confessional to the poetry of Robert Lowell, and the term has expanded to include a mode of highly personal and revealing poetry associated with Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, and others. In this class we will closely read the work of American poets whose work is said to be confessional while also questioning the very idea of confessionalism in poetry. For example, we will ask what makes a poem confessional, whether poetry can ever be non-confessional, and how confessional poetry relates to other modes of confession.