Confessional poetry is still as popular and controversial as ever. Devastated by mental breakdowns, the Confessionals invented a new mode of writing in the hope of self-cure. None of them succeeded. Their failures materialized dramatically in the suicides of three major Confessional poets: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman. Although Robert Lowell did not actually killed himself, his resignation and self-destructive behavior was clearly discernible to friends and family members.In this book Rita Horváth reconceptualizes the field of Confessional poetry viewing Confessional poetry as a future-oriented attempt at self-construction rather than at self-exposure. Rita Horváth's work moves from consideration of formative traumas in the lives of the Confessionals to consideration of the whole era's formative trauma, the Nazi Holocaust. The earlier chapters of the book are quite transfigured by the last chapter concerned with the Holocaust, and take on unexpected meanings in its wake.