Confessionalism, continued

Left: Torso of a Giant, Jean Arp, 1964, Detroit Institute of Art




In the April 22 visitor comments here, Brenda writes:

“Do/did you ever have your students write essays based on the poetry style you are reading? In this case, the students would write confessional themes?

“Or is that too introspective, for students to reveal that much?

“In high school, our English teacher used to bring in huge photos of street scenes and we had to write an essay of what we thought was going on.”

Brenda, I like your English teacher’s assignment. I’ve done that kind of thing with descriptive essays, but I've only encouraged, not required students to imitate authors’ styles. There’s just never enough time for all good things, so I figured that the really motivated students would try it on their own if I pointed out the possible benefits (some did, some benefited, others not so much).

Sometimes kids have written somewhat confessional stuff, but I’d never ask or require them to; in fact I've cautioned them against it. I've encouraged them to base poems, stories and essays on personal experience and to try to see in their lives what's universally human. But confessional work takes that up several notches, and, as you say, those kinds of revelations can quickly become risky—going too public on too much intimate stuff and regretting it later, or getting into psychologically dangerous territory, or getting me sued.

Here’s my impression, not a fact: kids who want to reveal too much about themselves tend to be histrionic personalities and will do it without my asking or despite my forbidding it. They’re exhibitionists, and that's the heart of confessional work. "Look at me. I'm willing to say anything if you'll just look at me."

Are they honestly inviting me to share important human experience, or more grandiose, abstract pursuits of beauty and truth? Or do they just want readers, including me, to celebrate the wonderfulness of their dirty underwear, their self-indulgent escapades, their mental crucifixions of their parents, teachers, siblings, lost loves?

So I'm wary about such personalities among the professional poets. Anyone who writes for a public has some exhibitionist tendencies (yes, that includes me); but these days we have a convenient new expression for excesses, and we should heed the warning: “TMI: too much information.” Maybe the younger you are, the more you should think about that.

Aren’t there things that reasonable people (shall I call them “normal”?) wouldn’t dream of making public? And despite the voyeur in us all, we usually don’t want to hear it. Confession might be good for the penitent, but it's lousy hard work for the listener. Ask any shrink or priest.

In addition to their skill with language, edging up to, or crossing, that line of audience discomfort is at the heart of the power in Plath, Sexton, and other confessional poets. “Watch me say what others are afraid to say.” However, those professionals can go too far, and adolescents or young adults most certainly can—restraint and judgment are not traits often ascribed to the young.

Of course, the flip side is poetry or fiction so distant, formal, or academic that we feel a robot wrote it. The author didn’t emote, so how can we? I think some readers feel that way about Wallace Stevens and Richard Wilbur, to mention a couple of notables who have appeared on Banjo52 at one time or another.

So, Brenda, maybe that begins to respond to your questions as well as inducing a very fine nap for you and any innocent bystanders. But let me add one more note about confessional matters: in poetry and in life, I think it’s possible that we suffer from too little self-revelation rather than too much. Formality or reserve or custom, or whatever, are forms of artifice, dishonesty, fear, and conventionality that can deaden meaningful communication as much as confessionalism can turn it into a ten-cent carny act.

So where’s the boundary? This is why most (not all) multiple choice exams in English classes are an affront and a cheat.

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