Confessional poetry came on the literary scene in the 1950s. Those men and women wrote about topics which affected them deeply. Mental illness, divorce, sexuality, infidelity and death were taboo subjects brought out in the open.
I have read the work of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and John Berryman and have come to understand the pain they felt about certain events in their lives. I never experienced a close family member committing suicide (Berryman's father) or being institutionalized (Sexton) however I can see how these traumatic events shaped the way they wrote. The fact that the confessional poets would share openly these events to the public is a testament to their honestly and clarity of their true feelings.
Some other confessional poets are Robert Lowell, who taught both Plath and Sexton, W.D.Snodgrass, Sharon Olds and Marie Howe.
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