After Confession

Named as the "Best of the Best Anthologies for 2001" by the Boston Phoenix

In an age of countless memoirs, the distinction between fiction and nonfiction has become increasingly blurred, sparking controversy among writers and readers alike. But what about the autobiographical impulse in poetry? In this groundbreaking collection of essays, some of our best contemporary poets contemplate the legacy of the fundamental "confessional poets" (Plath, Sexton, Lowell, et al.) as well as other writers from across the literary landscape whose poetry is decidedly autobiographical. They also tackle such crucial and difficult topics as the nature of authorial responsibility in telling the truth, the focus on issues of self in relation to others and to the natural world, the very essence of craft as transformation, and the role female poets have played in breaking the code of silence.

Rich in both opinion and theory, After Confession offers us a readable and thorough discussion on the lyric "I"—that problematic and ever-shifting boundary between literal and emotional truth, memory and imagination, person and persona, and narcissism and revelation. This book is essential reading for all students and scholars of poetry as it is written and read today.

Contents

Sharon Olds, Take the I Out
David Graham & Kate Sontag, Introduction: Containing Multitudes

I. Staying News: Critical & Historical Perspectives
William Matthews, Personal and Impersonal
Joan Aleshire, Staying News: A Defense of the Lyric
Sydney Lea, Making a Case; or, "Where Are You Coming From?"
Alan Williamson, Stories about the Self (I & II)
Joseph Bruchac, The Self within the Circle
Billy Collins, My Grandfather's Tackle Box: The Limitations of Memory-Driven Poetry


f1II. Our Better Halves: Autobiographical Musings
David Graham, Voluminous Underwear; or, Why I Write Self-Portraits
Stanley Plumly, Autobiography and Archetype
Colette Inez, Family Talk: Confessional Poet? Not Me
Thylias Moss, My Better Half
Frank Bidart, Borges and I
Claudia Rankine, The First Person in the Twenty-First Century
Annie Finch, Coherent Decentering: Toward a New Model of the Poetic Self
Yusef Komunyakaa, The Autobiographical "I": An Archive of Metaphor, Imagery, and Innuendo

III. Degrees of Fidelity: Ethical & Aesthetic Considerations
Kate Sontag, Mother, May I?: Writing with Love
Ted Kooser, Lying for the Sake of Making Poems
Carol Frost, Self-Pity
Stephen Dunn, Degrees of Fidelity
Andrew Hudgins, The Glass Anvil: "The Lies of an Autobiographer"
Brendan Galvin, The Contemporary Poet and the Natural World
Kimiko Hahn, Blunt Instrument: A Zuihitsu

IV. Codes of Silence: Women & Autobiography
Pamela Gemin, Bless Me, Sisters
Louise Glück, The Forbidden
Judith Harris, Breaking the Code of Silence: Ideology and Women's Confessional Poetry
Kimberly Blaeser, The Voices We Carry
Carol Muske-Dukes, Women and Poetry: Some Notes
Marilyn Chin, Translating Self: Stealing from Wang Wei, Kowtowing to Hughes, Hooking Up with Keats, Undone by Donne
Alicia Ostriker, Beyond Confession: The Poetics of Postmodern Witness
Adrienne Rich, In Those Years

David Graham is the poetry editor of Blue Moon Review. He is the author of six collections of poetry, including Stutter Monk, and is a professor of English at Ripon College.

Kate Sontag teaches in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies. She lives in Ripon, Wisconsin.