Many poets in the past twenty years forgot, were never taught, or made no effort to study where and why Confessional Poetry originated. Craftmanship is thrown out the window because feelings are more important. Having the idea of a house will not build you a physical brick house, or even a house of straw. We need to first discuss the craft of carving a Confessional Poem out of life experiences before discussing shelby leigh’s poetry collection changing with the tides.
Let’s Talk About Confessional Poetry
Confessional Poetry gained notoriety in the late 1950s. Within Confessional Poetry, the poet explores the relationship between the writer and the experience of the “I”. You might think Confessional Poem’s writer is the “I”, but that is a fallacy.
The poet places the event and the I’s experience of the event one-step, or one degree outside themselves. The poet focuses on personal trauma, and through writing places the traumatic event outside themselves as they are, in that moment of writing, in a different physical location and not the same person. As a therapist-assisted practice, Confessional Poetry has documented positive outcomes.
Confessional Poetry from its very beginnings explored feelings of trauma, depression, and relationships with complete rejection of propriety. The Confessional Poem’s “I” is at the center of the poem. The poet rejects the use of metaphors for the experience, nor allows the speaker in the poem the peace of anonymity.
Early, award winning poets Anne Sexton (1928-1974) and Slyvia Plath (1932-1963) each used the Confessional form to process their life experiences. Both started writing at the recommendation of their therapists. Both attended lectures by Robert Lowell at Boston University. Lowell first used Confessional Poetry to explore his infidelity to his first wife.
Early Confessional poets understood that while they were setting fire to1950s United States society’s sense of propriety, the poems required structure and respect for intonation, stress, syllables, and rhythm. The early poets, as part of their literary revolution, celebrated 1950s colloquial speech. Colloquial speech allowed everyone to know the “I’s” emotional state.
Besides using common language, other tools such as rhythm and sound expressed subtle to straightforward emotions. Pauses, filled pauses, and expressive nonwords such as grunts expressed the “I’s” emotion. Chunking, a phrase used as one word through lack of articulation or use of hyphen, for example Kansas City becomes Kans-City, emphasizes the “I’s” attitude.
Comprehending and producing differences in intonation, rhythm, and nonverbal clues can be hindered by physical brain damage and medically intentional chemical “numbing” or turning off certain parts of the brain. There is accumulating evidence hearing something read with feeling and expression, and when read silently but still with expression, increases comprehension of what is read. If one cannot feel, one cannot comprehend.
Let’s Talk About changing with the tides
The poetry collection changing with the tides is firmly set within the tradition of Confessional Poetry. The shape of the collection is a confessional journey stepping softly forward one poem at a time. With each poem the writer’s “I” progresses towards self-forgiveness.
The simple, concise language of the collection makes the healing story accessible to many people who otherwise would not pick up a book. Words mean what they mean. The “I” of the collection does not hide behind metaphors or extensive imagery to soften the self-blame and self-loathing expressed in the poems. I like the physicality of the descriptions, mostly monosyllable words, throughout the collection, for example “…i have so much to say,/ but i choke on/ self-doubt.”
What I do question is the use of the lower case i throughout the collection. Throughout my poetry life, as an undergraduate student to the present, I have been lectured that the use of the lower case i is a pulsating red flag of a person with seriously low self-esteem and in dire need of a good psychologist. If you are going to write yourself happy and healthy, use a capital I in reference to yourself. You are worthy of a capital I.
One of the problems with “radical responsibility”, as celebrated by many in the self-help industry and New Age thought crowd, is it gives systematic misogyny a pass when it puts the individual in an unsafe situation where they must guess which is the least lousy choice. The speaker in changing of the tides needs to learn the difference between taking responsibility and knowing when the “I” was keeping themselves safe in a dangerous situation.
changing with the tides is a poetry journey that will help those who are looking for confirmation there is a way forward to a better life. If someone picks up a pen to write their healing journey in poetry because of this collection, so much the better.
Please support your local library and check out this poetry collection, or support your local bookstore and its community by purchasing the collection from them.
shelby leigh’s website is shelbyleigh.co
changing with the tides (Gallery Books paperback 2022) front and back cover by Islam Farid
This Poem Guide on Anne Sexton by Austin Allen from 2015 is, I think, the best out there: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70275/anne-sexton-the-truth-the-dead-know
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