t there's this thing: if a poem is autobiographical . . . you want the reader to say, this is true" (Maio 38). It is the poet's sincerity, not his authenticity, which is crucial.
Anne Sexton, who referred to Lowell as her spiritual "father" (Phillips 7), has been referred to as "the most persistent and daring of the confessionalists" (McClatchy 30). Much like Lowell, who "invented" confessional poetry while following a therapist's orders to write, Sexton's literary career began at twenty-eight when, after a nervous breakdown, her psychiatrist suggested she try writing as a form of therapy. She was a complete novice at the time, had no college education, and was utterly unschool
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