Poetry as Emotional Release

People who are experiencing emotional pain often turn to poetry as a way to vent their negative feelings.   It is healthy to express one’s emotions and poetry is a good way to express them, however, there is often a breakdown in communications between the poet and their audience when the poet is using their art as a safety valve to release the uncomfortable pressure resulting from sadness, anger, desire or fear.  The problem arises when the poet expresses their negative emotions simply and literally. 

Why would confusion arise from simple and literal communication?   Several aspects of literal representations of feelings pose problems.  The first is the nature of feelings.  Feelings are highly personal, complex combinations of mental and physical manifestations that are unique to the individual - just like all thoughts.  If a poet wants to say, “the rose is red,” that is simple and concrete enough concept to get across; but if a poet wants to say, “I have heart-wrenching pain that chases all thoughts except those about my loss out of my brain,” this is considerably more difficult to communicate. 

Everyone experiences pain slightly differently, but all pain has in common that it is an internal, unsharable experience.  You can share a meal with someone, but you cannot share your pain with them.  No matter what you do, you will never be able to make them feel precisely what you feel. 

Therefore the true experience of individual pain can only be communicated imprecisely.   Although the poet may know perfectly well what they mean when they write, “I’m sad,” no one else is really ‘getting it.’  'Sad' has so many meanings - a different meaning to every human - that it is in fact meaningless in terms of expressing a recognizable emotion. 

“When you left it made me sad
Since you’re gone I’ve felt so bad
Tears run freely down my cheeks
And I haven’t slept well in weeks.”

The above example illustrates the problem.  What does it feel like to feel sad?  What does ‘felt so bad’ feel like?  Almost everyone, I’m sure, has felt tears run down their cheeks, but what is the precise feeling behind the tears?  And if you haven’t slept in weeks, why is that?  Is it because you feel bad and sad?  What does that really feel like?

The best poetry shows us what sad looks like or lets it hear the sounds of sadness.   In great poetry, sadness may have a striking taste or strong smell, or it might feel soft or hard, cold or warm.  Tears are tears, but what do they mean?  In poetry, the meaning behind tears can be expressed in ways that provoke the reader or listener to feel something that echoes or otherwise responds to the feeling expressed by the poem. 

Look at this anonymous poem penned in the Twelfth or Thirteenth Century of the Common Era: 

“Westron wind, when wilt thou blow
That small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!”

Does the poem mention frustration, impatience, desire or sadness by name?  Does it need to?  Yet everyone can experience a piece of this poet’s emotion because the images are plain to see and feel.  Add to that something as mysterious as desire for ‘small rain’ and you have a poem that effectively delivers emotion with a minimum of words. 

The temptation is great to express one’s emotions literally and have them outed from ourselves; but when we really want to share our emotions with others, we write images that inspire them to feel.  Tough they will perhaps never feel precisely as we do,  they will be interested, and in being interested they will open up to what we are trying to say.  In this life that is the most you can ask.