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the desPeration to enshroud conFessional Poetry in neGativity is remarkable. in its heyday critics called it narcissistic and irrelevant; in the twenty-first century it is labeled passé. According to Alan Williamson, "almost from the moment that unfortunate term was coined, confessionalism has been the whipping boy of half a dozen newer schools" (51). the legal and religious connotations of "confession"-sinful, brash, illicit, begging for censure-may be in part to blame. it is also true that the biographical nature of confessional poetry and its engagement with taboo topics such as mental illness, sexuality, mortality, and the subconscious means the poet's life can overshadow the work. some claim that getting mileage out of personal experience is akin to whoredom. others maintain that neuroticism drives confessional poets to foist their suffering upon readers in order to self-satisfy. those eager to vilify confessionalism readily accept the confessional poet as both prostitute and the recipient of the orgasm. Melissa A. Goldthwaite relates the difficulties of teaching plath: "i said, 'Craft, craft, craft. Look at these line breaks, her use of sound and form.' i pointed to images and allusions. Always, plath's reputation preceded her. students asked: 'didn't she kill herself? How? Are her kids screwed up?'" (72). this is how one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century has been remembered. sylvia plath is the most famous confessional poet and was a student of Robert Lowell, whose Life Studies in 1959 initiated the genre. Robert phillips describes confessionalism as belonging to the 1960s "post-Christian, post-Kennedy, post-pill America" (13). While this description may aptly situate plath, her recurring World War ii imagery suggests confessionalism should also be considered postHolocaust and post-bomb-and those identifiers cement confessional poetry's continued international significance.
Australian confessional poet Bruce Beaver wrote his first poem at age seventeen as a response to the bombing of Hiroshima. this also marked the onset of his manic-depressive illness. Beaver's work had a considerable inf luence on the development of the "Generation of 1968" and the "new Australian poetry" of the 1970s, but in an interview with thomas shapcott, Beaver said, "i would rather be a minor world poet than a big Australian poet," and his wish came true. on his death, fellow poet dorothy porter called him "one of Australia's...