to distance himself from, and for good reason.
For one thing, the description is counterproduc-
tive in regards to understanding an individual
poem. Labels explain little, and at the same
time they limit a work’s possibilities. Labels
may make readers feel that a poem is only rele-
vant to a particular place and time. Because of
this, readers may study a poem as a historical
curiosity rather than as a work of art that is
relevant to the world they live in today.
Besides the ways in which labeling can limit
how readers view a poem, there is the broader
issue in this case of whether the label even pro-
vides an accurate description. Confessional
poetry describes a poetry that reveals secrets of
the author’s that most people would rather keep
hidden. There does not seem to be any need for
confession, after all, if there is not some secret
involved.
It simply is not clear whether ‘‘Heart’s Nee-
dle’’ is any more revealing of the secrets of the
human soul than any other well-written poem.
Certainly, its subject matter, concerning the
changes that come between a man and his grow-
ingdaughterafterhisdivorce,seemslikepretty
tame stuff today when compared to some of the
therapeutic childhood stories and poems that
are routinely published concerning abandon-
ment, incest, and mental disease. The ordinari-
ness of Snodgrass’s poem, though, should not
be a consideration here. It just would not be
right to judge the poem by the standards of
today, given that the confessional poets worked
against different social standards, breaking
barriers of taste and propriety that modern
readers can only imagine. Writers of Snod-
grass’s generation—Lowell, Berryman, Plath,
and the rest—made the personal poetry that is
now commonly published possible. What
makes a poem confessional or not is a matter
not of how embarrassing the reader might find
the relationships it describes so much as what
the events in the poem mean to the speaker.
Here, the evidence about whether this poem
is actually a confession is unclear. At times, it
seems as if ‘‘Heart’s Needle’’ is telling readers
details of the poet’s personal life that he would
just barely be able to whisper among the closest
of friends. More often, though, the poem reads
as if the poet is standing up to announce his
declaration, a justification of what he did as
being what he had to do. A justification is quite
a different thing than a confession.
The uncertainty about this poem’s tone
starts in the epigraph and follows through from
there. Snodgrass starts by providing a section of
the ancient Gaelic storyThe Frenzy of Suibhne.
This brief vignette provides the poem’s title, as
Suibhne states upon hearing that his daughter
has died that an only daughter is like a needle in
the heart. Just what this story is supposed to
mean is ambiguous, and that ambiguity carries
into the rest of the poem. On the one hand, it
could be read that the father is saying that his
overwhelming love for his daughter makes him
vulnerable to news of her bad fortune. On the
other hand, Suibhne does not seem to be suffer-
ing too much over his daughter’s death; a needle
is a much smaller thing than, say, a dagger. He
might as well call his daughter’s death a minor,
though sharp, pain.
Even more perplexing is the question of how
readers are to apply Suibhne’s story to ‘‘Heart’s
Needle.’’ Snodgrass does not stop at Suibhne’s
line about his daughter and a needle in the heart
but carries on, including the response Suibhne
then gives upon hearing of the death of his son.
Whatever this means to the overall story ofThe
Frenzy of Suibhne, it is almost offensively dis-
missive in relation to ‘‘Heart’s Needle.’’ Snod-
grass does not mention a son anywhere in his
poem. The passage as used in this epigraph
seems to make an even more radical point than
the suggestion that a son’s fate is more important
to a father than a daughter’s: Snodgrass’s use of
it gives the impression that he may think even a
theoretical son is more important to him than his
real daughter. By including the lines that give
Suibhne’s reaction to the death of his son, Snod-
grass goes out of his way to put the focus on a
character who does not even correspond to one
in his poem, thus taking the spotlight off his
daughter.THE SEARCH FOR CONFESSIONS IN
CONFESSIONAL POETRY BECOMES LIKE SORTINGSALT FROM SAND WITH TWEEZERS, A JOB SO LABOR-
INTENSIVE THAT IT CAN NEVER END UP BEING
WORTH ITS WHILE.’’Heart’s Needle