“The Expatriates” by Anne Sexton (1960)

Anne Sexton is both one of Lowell’s previous students and one of his peers as a notable figure of Confessional Poetry. “The Expatriates” was published in Sexton’s debut collection, To Bedlam and Part Way Back in 1960 and showcases the more controversial themes and topics associated with Confessional poetry. While “Epilogue” functions as a mature reckoning with Confessional poetics by an artist who works with related ideas, “The Expatriates” demonstrates the nuts-and-bolts Confessional features which made the movement so famous.

“Waking Early Sunday Morning” by Robert Lowell (1967)

Another famous Lowell poem, “Waking Early Sunday Morning” (1967) showcases the formal verse more typical to Lowell’s earlier career. Additionally, the poem is notable for its inclusion of Lowell’s politics and the pacifist statement it makes. This political element to the poem demonstrates the range of the Confessional approach, stretching as it does between the intimately personal and the broadly political.

“Ode to the Confederate Dead” by Allen Tate (1928)

This long poem published in Allen Tate’s debut poetry collection in 1928 is notable for being one of Tate’s more famous poems and for exemplifying Tate’s relationship with literary Modernism and New Critical theory. Tate was a powerful influence on Robert Lowell, both as a poetic inspiration and as a teacher. This poem is a good introduction to Tate’s poetics, and was directly referenced in Robert Lowell’s 1964 poem “For the Union Dead,” which was written as a response poem to Tate’s ode.