The Dolphin

The Dolphin, book of confessional poetry by Robert Lowell, published in 1973. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1974. The subject is the author’s third marriage, the son it produced, and the response to these matters by his previous wife of 20 years. The poems are unrhymed sonnets, and in subject matter and narrative content they recall late Victorian love sonnets. The book broke new ground in confessional poetry, and many of Lowell’s contemporaries, including his friend and fellow poet Elizabeth Bishop, were dismayed by the work’s subject matter.