Prompt #267 – Writing from an Emotional Place

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found words.

— Robert Frost

Emotion is poetry can be a tricky thing that begs the question, “How does a poet convey genuine emotion without being ‘emotional’ or sentimental?”

This week’s challenge will be to write a poem in which you convey an emotion without stating what that emotion is. In other words, your poem will show rather than tell the emotion.

Guidelines:

1. Think about a time in your life that was characterized by a high level of emotional response (e.g., marriage, birth of a child, divorce, death of a loved one).

2. Return to that time in memory. What did you feel (joy, happiness, love, anger, depression, frustration, insecurity, loneliness, grief)? How did you express your emotion? What other people were involved? What were others’ reactions to the emotional trigger? What exactly happened (not an emotional interpretation—just the facts)? How did the emotional time return to normal? Are there lingering effects even now?

3. Begin by asking yourself what you want your poem to “do.” Where do you want it to go? You might make a few notes of things you want to include. Importantly, what do you want your readers to fee when they read your poem?

4. Begin writing by setting a time, season, and/or place, and then move your poem forward.

5. After you have completed several drafts, experiment with a stanza pattern (3, 4, or 6 lines in each stanza—don't do this too early in the writing process or you may find yourself writing to accommodate the stanza plan rather than the poem’s meaning).

6. After you’ve written what feels like a complete poem, set the poem aside for a few days. When you come back to it, think about what the poem doesn’t need and remove rather than add. most importantly, is there any overstated emotion that you can work out of the poem?

Tips:

• Try to write in the active, not the passive, voice. To do that, it can be helpful to remove “ing” endings and to write in the present tense (this will also create a greater sense of immediacy).

• If you're writing a poem about a time that you were angry, remember that this isn't a rant poem. Instead, examine the memory of an angry time and to show it as it was without telling it overtly.

• Show, don’t tell—through striking imagery, a strong emotional center, and an integrated whole of language, form, and meaning.

• Challenge the ordinary, connect, reveal, surprise! And … remember that a poem should mean more than the words it contains.

• Don’t ramble on, and don’t try to explain everything—leave your readers room to enter the poem and personalize it.

• Avoid “preachiness.” Don’t worry about what your readers might learn or not learn about the joys or pitfalls of a particular emotion.

• Be wary of concluding with a sentimental or emotional statement, no matter how heartfelt such a statement might be. Emotions, blatantly stated, can detract from the power of a poem.

Example (a villanelle written by Dylan Thomas to his dying father):

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.