Why does painful poetry come more easily?

When I entered into Vocal’s ‘Color is Pride: True Colors’ challenge, I was both excited and intimidated by the project. I realised quite quickly this would be the most personal and likely the most challenged writing experience of my adult life. The last time I had written a poem I was fresh out of high school and in my first real relationship. There was a clear purpose, which helped; write something cute and dumb and that’ll do. Simple enough, right? Somehow it was still surprisingly difficult. It didn’t even need to be good to get the job done. It was very much one of those ‘it’s the thought that counts’ scenarios, but still I struggled.

With this Vocal project on the other hand, I was expected to look inward. I needed to find something significant and genuine to draw from, something about myself, but here’s the thing, I don’t consider myself to be all that interesting. At least not when it comes to anything I can safely share with the wider world (the wider world being extended friends and family; strangers are easier). So, what could I write about?

I started with a hobby. Not everyone’s into D&D. That’s probably different enough, and I could explore the joys and freedom of tabletop roleplaying games. I struggled through the challenges balancing rhyme and meter with great hesitancy around breaking the rules. I counted out the syllables of each line, focused on the placement of the rhyming words and was constantly searching up synonyms and rhyming words to get my point across in this new form that was far outside of my typical experience of writing. I composed and submitted ‘Mind Matters’, detailing three of my primary characters in Pathfinder (a tabletop roleplaying game) and how I use them to experience different parts of myself in a safe space. It wasn’t too bad. A little stilted, but for a first attempt I was pretty happy. It didn’t light any kind of fire within me though and it was such hard work.

I wondered if I could find something that would help me to let go a little, and decided to try again with a slightly more personal and challenging topic, but one that I could apply a little bounce and fun to write. Before long I had it! What’s more personal than mental health? I’d never really gone deep about my ADHD before and I wondered if I could write a poem that not just explained it but helped others experience even a fracture of what it feels like. Could I do this through words? It was in that frame of mind I wrote ‘The Secret World of Go, Go, Go’ and honestly, it seemed to work, at least a little. I was able to express the ‘go’ of ADHD as well as the dips by taking my audience on a journey through pace, rhyme and the general structure of the piece.

It was more personal than the first one in a lot of ways, and certainly more painful, though the pain, I’m sure, is only lightly evident in my expression of the issue. Could it be pain that made it easier?

I had to know more, so for my final submission to this challenge I delved deeper still and discovered my deepest pain of that time, wondering if from this could create something beautiful. The words flowed from within me with such ease this time. I did not fear the consequences of straying from the strict technical guidelines I’d been taught in my youth during all of those years of English class. I released the energy that held within it some of my most exciting and joyous experiences alongside the pain of loss and change, no longer able to separate them. They flowed onto the page, a series of metaphors and symbols representing some of the most personal and private experiences of my life, with the highs, the lows, and of course the pain that holds them together.

‘Did you ever see it? A rainbow in the dark’, the subheading actually matters to me with this one, became by far my favourite of the three and quickly gained more momentum reads-wise than an of my written works on Vocal up to that point.

The crazy part? It took far less time to write, with part of it simply coming to me while I was sitting in the passenger seat on the way to a Mother’s Day event. The inspiration hit me with such force that I simply couldn’t wait to get home to write it. I typed away one my phone, which I can never normally write on, until it was done.

Why was it so easy? It must have been the pain, or the intensity of it at least. Heightened emotions aren’t restricted to hurt and grief. I’ve had moments of happiness so overwhelming they moved me to tears, and I imagine the ease of writing in such situations would be similar. The difference, I believe, is that we tend to be more familiar with painful emotions. It’s not difficult to bring yourself into that space, to relive it, because when something truly terrible or heart-breaking happens we naturally relive it over and over again in our hearts and minds until we’re able to process and move past it.

Since the Vocal challenge ended, I’ve found myself frequently inspired to continue writing poetry, drawing from different experiences but still, in a sense, from the same well. Though my most recent poems are not quite as deep as ‘Did you ever see it’ (again, my personal favourite), writing them has brought quite an enjoyable sense of catharsis and I plan to continue composing poems, experimenting and improving my craft in this area.

Shout out to Vocal for being the catalyst of my poetry journey.

Here are some links to my more recent ones, and a sneaky extra one just for you. ;)

Spiral

The hollow hole it widens

I’ve been away too long

Too many fleeting moments

Been drifting all along.

Spiralling cold it captures

A heart now turned to ice

The thawing paths grow dimmer

Sometimes that’s just the price.

I lived within each moment

Now moments pass me by

We cannot catch the future

Why do we even try?

It must be something deep inside

Still hidden in the hole

A tiny spark, light in the dark

What some still call a soul.