Sharon Olds and Confessional Poetry

The twentieth century was a period of great change - rapid industrialization, the growth of sophisticated technology and the realization of the subconscious, as discovered by psychoanalysis psychology founder, Sigmund Freud. Because of the ever changing times, the arts also began to evolve. More specifically, poetry began to adapt to our increasingly self-conscience universe and so the style of confessional poetry was born. The movement started in the late 1950s-early 1960s with writers such as …

…Vol. 13/3. 1987. Olds, Sharon. The Dead and the Living. New York : Knopf, 1984. Olds, Sharon. The Father. New York : Knopf, 1992. Olds, Sharon. The Unswept Room. New York : Knopf, 2002. Olds, Sharon. Satan Says. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh Press, 1980. Parras, John. The Literacy Encyclopedia. 05 Feb. 2004. The Literary Dictionary Company. 01 Apr. 2006. <http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3410>. Schultz, Susan M. "The Double Burden of American Poets." Virginia Quarterly Review 65 (1989) : 773-784