Tags: Poem.
‘Waking in the Blue’ is a poem by Robert Lowell that was published in his book Life Studies and is a striking early example of confessional poetry. Of the handful of poems from Life Studies in which Lowell explored his struggles with mental illness this poem was one of Lowell’s most forthwright admissions that he had serious mental problems. Though he doesn’t discuss the exact nature of his mental illness in the poem he does describe his hospitalization in a mental institution.