Reminiscences of Childhood for Confessional Poets

Childhood is a fascinating experience for one and all, more so for a poet, as his/her experience as a child, is responsible for the later development in life. Experiences at this stage are raw, emotional, inarticulate-often expressed though gestures and sounds. But the same experience takes on larger meaning after a few years, when they are viewed objectively. Ruminating over the past events, putting the clock back, imagining with intensity and expressing them through a language which is provocative and beautiful; suggestive and intriguing, this nostalgia for childhood is one of the distinctive aspects of confessional poetry. The profile of the baby as ‘pure', happy and carefree child without tensions or problems, is pervasively found in their poems. This strain of nostalgia, critics feel, is inevitable as they look at the future as uncertain which does not augur much hope; the present is full of tensions and contradictions, which seem unresolved; as such the poets are tempted. Sometimes forced to look back on their past for recapturing happier moments.