Analysis
The purpose of Confessional Poetry was to write about subjects that most people are not comfortable discussing freely such as death and suicide. Anne Sexton's The Moss of His Skin does that by describing the connection she still wants from her father after his death. She's explaining how she loses herself being with her father and pretends that nobody can see or notice her because she wants to be left alone and have alone time with him. Using literary terms such as hyperbole and consonance adds to the tone of the poem which is sad and depressed. It also brings out Anne's mood of being secretive and feeling that nobody should know about her moment with her dad except her. |
Literary Devices
Hyperbole- A example of hyperbole would be when she talks about how the black room her and her father was "taken into them like an indoor belly or a cave". Using this hyperbole grasped the reader's attention and lured them into the story causing them to visualize the cave and making them actually feel like they are in the cave with them. Using this kind of language helped to make the tone of the poem gloomy and sad but also an understanding from the reader of what she's going through. Consonance- Examples of consonance in this poem include together and mother and still and while. Using consonance aided Anne's secretive mood and making how she felt known that she doesn't want anyone not even God to see how she spends time with her father. This also shows how the only thing she felt that was most important to her was to hold her dad peacefully without any interruptions. |
Poem
The Moss of His Skin BY ANNE SEXTON It was only important to smile and hold still, to lie down beside him and to rest awhile, to be folded up together as if we were silk, to sink from the eyes of mother and not to talk. The black room took us like a cave or a mouth or an indoor belly. I held my breath and daddy was there, his thumbs, his fat skull, his teeth, his hair growing like a field or a shawl. I lay by the moss of his skin until it grew strange. My sisters will never know that I fall out of myself and pretend that Allah will not see how I hold my daddy like an old stone tree. |
Confessional Poetry
Confessional poetry is a form of poetry that emerged during the 1950's and 1960's in the United States. This form of writing was described as "of the personal". Poets involved in this movement include Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, W.D. Snodgrass, and Anne Sexton. This included subject matter that had not been openly discussed in American poetry. The subject matter included death, depression, suicide, trauma, and mental illness.