Anne Sexton and Confessional Poetics

Abstract

This article re-evaluates the work of the American poet Anne Sexton. It suggests that, far from being the apotheosis of confessionalism, as is typically asserted, Sexton's writing is engaged in a process of negotiation and contestation with the boundaries of the confessional mode. The article begins by summarizing and critiquing conventional definitions of confessional poetry, as exem-plified in the work of Sexton's contemporaries, A. Alvarez, M. L. Rosenthal, and others. Thereafter, a number of more recent, theoretically rigorous accounts of confessional discourse (including the work of Antony Easthope, Michel Foucault, and Leigh Gilmore) are introduced. Close readings of a number of Sexton's poems are offered in order to assess the appropriateness of these critical approaches. In particular, the little-known poem ‘Cripples and Other Stories’ is examined. The article suggests that this text reads as a provocative pastiche and rejection of orthodox readings of confessionalism, and anticipates and substantiates the perceptions of confessional discourse proposed by later, post-structuralist, commentators. The argument throughout the article is informed by reference to unpublished material from the Sexton archive at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.