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contexts in confessional and postconfessional poetry
When looking back today on the American poetry of the second half of the twentieth century, we see that for many of the major, and still dominant, poets of the period, the confessional mode was a vital force. It made, and, of course, was shaped by, Robert Lowell, whose 1959 Life Studies prompted the delineation of the style. It galvanized Sylvia Plath, sustained Anne Sexton and provided a useful countertradition even for those who never identified themselves as "confessional" (most obviously Elizabeth Bishop). It also proved fundamental to the careers of many poets of the next generation (including Thom Gunn and Sharon Olds)--even as such successors to the original "school" spent much of their time resisting, or at least rethinking, the terms of the debate.
Introduction: "At the center of how I think my life": my mother -- "And, moreover / my mother says": Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and confessional maternity -- "Freaked in the moon brain": Allen Ginsberg and Frank Bidart: confessing crazy mothers -- Postconfessional stories: C.K. Williams and Robert Hass on maternal breasts and mouths -- "Yellow flowers ... with mouths like where / babies come from": Yusef Komunyakaa's innuendos, ideas, and insinuations about motherhood -- "And all this time I've stayed awake with you": romanticism in Stanley Plumly's maternal metaphor -- "I am made by her, and undone": an Anglo-American coda; or, Thom Gunn undone -- Conclusion: "You still haven't finished with your mother": men constructing a poetics of motherhood.
Hannah Baker Saltmarsh ; foreword by Jo Gill.
Includes bibliographical references and index.