American Studies: Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead"

Today we discussed your conclusions about the New York School poets. We came to the conclusion that their poems are about the poet setting off for a destination without knowing exactly where he/she is headed, so they are about the process of writing the poem. We also decided that the New York School poets are indirect: they get at their message sideways instead of hitting it head on. They also seem to stand at a distance from tragedy, not wanting to address it directly. Their poems are personal, but they're not confessional: not exposing all your emotions for everyone to see.
Today we moved on to the Confessional Poets. The New York School poets didn't particularly like the confessional poets. They felt the poetry was too personal. The Confessional poets were influenced by Allen Ginsberg and the other Beats. Robert Lowell was one of the first. Read his bio in your Lit. book (page 948) or on poets.org. We read his poem, "For the Union Dead," (written in 1964) in the lit. book, pages 950-952. This is a poem that you must read more than once to understand. You should also read the background information on page 949, and the captions under the pictures on pages 950 and 952. After analyzing and discussing the poem, students were asked to make a journal entry explaining what they understood the message of the poem to be. Robert Lowell influenced other confessional poets such as Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath: we will look at them later in the week.