Rachel Zucker on the "I" in Poetry

Just read this essay to procrastinate further on end-of-semester work. But it was worth it! Funny and insightful. Rachel Zucker invents these "ality" and "istic" terms to cover a diverse range of orientations around selfhood in poetry. Here's a piece:

There needs to be risk. Confessionalistic poetry is more risky than Autobiographicality. Autobiographicality, no matter how disturbing in content, is always the story of a life, of what happened, of circumstance and event. Confessionalistic poetry is the splitting open of self, a minor chord before and without resolution. A shopping list read aloud, even with gusto, with style, is not Confessionalistic, even if you intend to buy parmesan, pull-ups, and heroin. The risk in a poem that relies heavily on Autobiographicality is usually a risk of content. Privacy, reputation, and decency, may all be risked by the Autobiographicalistic poet. But the Confessionalistic poet risks more; she is willing to undermine the boundaries of self. Often, she is writing at the frayed edge of the genre in the busy interstitial space between neurons.

Molly and I heard Rachel Zucker speak at AWP with D. A. Powell, Carl Phillips and others on "Beyond the Song of Oneself: The Intersection of the Personal and the Public in Poetry." It was my favorite panel!

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