Next up in our little game of poet-roulette was Anne Sexton, she of Confessional fame. I think it's important for you to get a sense of Ye Olde Confessional Poets because many of the tenets of Confessionalism are de rigeur in contemporary Poems That Make Sense. Certainly de rigeur for the ASFA Poem That Makes Sense. There's often a You and an I in the poem. It's a personal expression of Self, with allusions to an actual lived life. Hence, there's at least the veneer of autobiography. All of this stuff is taken for granted these days--almost to the point where it's a cliche that poetry is, by definition, "emo"--but there was a time when such things (supposedly) weren't in the purview of poetry. Interesting that Sexton's paired with Whitman, who also introduced "non-poetic" subjects and forms -- namely common people and language -- that otherwise hadn't been "allowed" in poems. In both cases, "real" things that "regular" people care about get to be in poems, and that can't be bad right? Anything less would be, well, unAmerican...U-S-A! U-S-A!
PS...The thing that separates a legit "Confessional" poem from a cliche "emo" poem is, primarily, a heightened attention to craft (form, line, rhythm, sound, etc).
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