Confessional poetry is a style of modern poetry that draws openly on the poet's own life, especially private or painful experience such as family conflict, mental illness, addiction, grief, guilt, or trauma. It often feels intensely personal and direct, but it is still crafted art, not simple diary writing. The speaker may use first person, though the voice in the poem is not always identical to the poet.
The style became especially associated with mid-20th-century American poets such as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and W. D. Snodgrass.
Example
I kept the hospital bracelet in my desk,
blue vinyl fading at the edges.
Each time I opened the drawer,
my pulse remembered the room.
I wrote my mother's name on the back
and closed it like a secret.