Poetry has long been used
to ease sadness, to mourn the passing of loved ones, and to vent the pain of a
broken heart. Historically, laments were uttered over the departed during
funerals and memorial services in the form of elegies, poetry that expressed sadness.
The term "elegy" means "lament" in Greek. They memorialize tragedy, conflict, and death in a somber manner. According to a review by
Lourdes Lopes-Ropero (2021) titled "Perimeters of Grief: Elegy in and Out
of Bounds in Fred D'Aguiar's Memorial Poetry," the elegy was written by
renowned poet Fred D'Aguiar in response to the April 2007 shootings at Virginia
Tech, which left 27 students dead on the campus where he worked as a professor.
The attacker had taken many of the teacher's English classes, and he questioned
whether there was anything more he could have done to help this student who had
been having trouble in his lectures.
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), a poet, referred to a lament as a "serious
meditative poem." Said he, "The thoughtful mind naturally turns to
poetry in the shape of elegy. The elegy's main topics become grief and love
since the poet will only express regret for the past or longing for the future
in relation to himself.” The definition of an "elegy" on Wikipedia is
that it "presents everything as lost and gone, or absent and future."
Divorce, in my opinion, is characterized by the feeling that "everything
is lost and gone." For many years I have wanted to write an elegy on the
feelings and experiences I had after losing my daughter and then my marriage. The
10th anniversary of my daughter's passing allowed me to suddenly access
emotions and words that had been latent for all those years. They erupted like
oil flowing from a dry well, boiling to the surface and pouring forth. That
book is currently being published. Even though my book is about mourning, it is not a eulogy memorializing the
dead. What then can it be called?
The
eulogy morphed from a funerary tradition into what is known today as autoethnography,
which is a written expression of important change points or events in one’s
life, such as divorce. Ethnographer Susanne Gannon’s article, “Picking at the
Scabs” (2002) chronicled her divorce and states, “The sorts of tales I tell in
this text risk being modernist tales about personal loss, recovery, and the
self, writing its way out of a painful past." Another unwitting
ethnographer is physician and medical educator, Deborah Kasman. In her article,
“Writing to Heal Thyself” (2006) the doctor used poetry as a means of healing
both the personal pain of her divorce, and the feelings of dealing with the death
of an 11-year-old patient. A more recent book of Haiku poetry has the unwieldy
title of, “F*ck You Haiku” (2021). It is penned by relationship columnist Kristina
Grish, offering slightly angry and very real “little breakup poems to help you
vent, heal, and move on.” Last but not least, the paper "Grief, Poetry,
and the Sweet Unexpected" by Richard Gold and Elizabeth Jordan (2018)
provides solid proof that adolescents who processed trauma by composing poetry
experienced psychological gains.
Award-winning
poet Fred D' Aguiar honors the victims of the Virginia Tech Massacres in 137
poems taken from his collection "Continental Shelf" (2011) in
"Children of Paradise" (2014), which is included in the anthology
"Perimeters of Grief: Elegy in and out of Bounds" (Lopes-Ropero,
2021). Says D’ Aguiar of using poetry to elegize: “…to elegize by poetry, when
faced with grief, makes marvelous things happen. The event of the poem stages immersion
in pain and catharsis from it, the drawer of a hurt relined, thought and felt
through. As a result, I found myself writing sonnet after sonnet about April
16, about grief for the dead.” D'Aguiar honors the deceased and expresses
regret on behalf of the survivors for failing to recognize the shooter's
lethality because some of the victims were his pupils.
When
D’Aguiar strays from sonnet form to a more open, lyrical form, professor poet
Jahan Ramazani (1994) comments, “Formlessness is a poetry of mourning…with an
extraordinary diversity of range, incorporating more anger and skepticism, more
conflict and anxiety than ever before.” As a result of recent mass murders and
a lack of mourning customs, Ramazani labels the formless elegy as
"psycho-poetic," combining elements of psychology's concept of sorrow
with the conventional elegy. According to Ramazani, society needs to provide
more "credible responses to loss." The article “Perimeters of Grief” makes
an argument in favor of the elegy, “that ancient and revered form of poetry, in
the face of atrociousness with which modern death continues to confront us” (Lopes-Ropero,
2021).
Deborah Kasman, a doctor, and teacher, said in
"Writing to Heal Thyself" (2006) that she found it soothing to write
in a diary about the death of an 11-year-old patient, a practice she terms
"reflective writing," even though expressing emotion was discouraged
in medical school. When her divorce unexpectedly occurred, she wrote in her
notebook, "Divorce is the greatest trauma I had ever experienced." She
recalls progressing through the stages of loss: “Grief, anger, reflection, and
acceptance, sometimes even forgiveness. Expressing my feelings through poetry enhanced
my ability for reclaiming self and embracing life…Reflecting through what I
wrote, I can see the stages now.” Kasman says that while the German doctor who
brought hospice care to the U.S., Dr. Kubler-Ross’ groundbreaking book, “On Death
and Dying” (1993) discusses the stages of bereavement, there are “many kinds of
loss having similar psychological effects.” She encourages physicians to “heal themselves”
because, “Physicians who are taught it is professional to distance from their
emotions rather than embrace empathy for patients, may learn the art of
detachment instead, unless they are encouraged to pursue self-expression and
healing.”
Described as "irreverent breakup Haikus,"
Kristina Grish's "F*uck You Haiku" (2021) is well-liked even if it is
quirky poetry. The relationship columnist's own marriage ended, which she
describes as "infuriating," and this is how the book came to be. In it,
she expresses the hope that it would "help anyone going through a split
deal with their heartbreak via poetry." Let this collection of creative
poetry from the publisher, Simon and Shuster, "help you say "f*ck
you" to that special someone and eventually "I love you" to
yourself," the publisher advises.
Over
the years, poetry has taken on a variety of forms, including the elegy,
autoethnography, and even haiku to help people cope with the pain caused by
death, divorce, and breakups. But how can we be sure that using poetry as
therapy may help with trauma? An article by Richard Gold and Elizabeth Jordan
titled "Grief, Poetry, and the Sweet Unexpected" (2018) is about
their Pongo Team Writing Project, a small research study that shows poetry can
heal trauma. Teenagers in juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, and
psychiatric institutions have had access to this poetry writing program in
Seattle, Washington, for 22 years. Many of the young people have had
devastating losses and struggle with addictions, post-traumatic stress
disorder, and criminal behavior. Trauma patients may act out during the writing
sessions with bursts of intense emotion or display tension. The Pongo Program
was established as a means of interacting with traumatized youngsters since
these kids frequently leave therapy. These children's therapists claim that
they are writing about traumas that they refused to talk about in treatment.
According to program assessments, the residents like the writing program, are
proud of their work, have progressed as writers, have discovered more about
themselves, and feel better. Residents claim they'll keep writing and use poetry to
cope with stress. They also have shared their writing with caregivers.
Testing also revealed a decrease in the impact of unpleasant
events, traumatic sorrow, and depression. Low dropout rates were seen, and
symptoms either improved or stabilized. These findings provide hard proof that
poetry reading and writing, at least among teens, may be therapeutic. The
"sweet, unexpected result" is that caregivers have benefited from the
program as well, as "learning a little about poetry, reading poetry, and
listening to poetry can be a healing process" (Gold, Jordan, 2018).
Poetry
is therapeutic, according to adults from a variety of professions, including a
writing student, a university professor, a doctor, the administrators of a
psychiatric adolescent program, and a journalist. Do these pieces and a small
research study support the hypothesis that poetry might help people recover
from the pain of divorce? Without a doubt, no. But when considered
collectively, these testimonials show that, from English lamentations to a
sardonic 3-line haiku, expressing sadness is a crucial step in recovering from
it.
Another term that is frequently used in grief treatment is "closure." To reach the final stage of grieving, acceptance, is what it implies. When I scattered my daughter's ashes, I had attained the stage of acceptance over her passing. However, there are no public funerals or ashes to scatter after a divorce. Even though it is a silent and largely personal loss, it is a significant one. As a result, getting over a divorce might be more difficult. And the ex wasn't killed. One partner may have moved on by having an affair, leaving the lonely partner with a bag of unpleasant emotions and unresolved losses. Divorce is not the same as death. However, to "move on," a divorced individual must also find closure. In my perspective, autoethnography is a wonderfully cathartic tool, and a prime example of the therapeutic usefulness of expressing grief over divorce, trauma, and even mass mortality.
Works Cited
Deborah L. Kasman. Writing to Heal Thyself: Physician as Person & Person as Physician. Journal for Learning through the Arts, (2)1. 2006.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. On
Death and Dying. Scribner Book Company. 1993.
Fred D’Aguiar. Bill of
Rights. Random House UK. 1998.
Fred D’Aguiar. Children
of Paradise. Random House UK. 2014.
Fred D’Aguiar. Continental
Shelf. Carcanet Press Ltd. 2011.
George Norlin. Database
of Classical Scholars. All Scholars: Norlin, George. Rutgers School
of Arts and Sciences. 2022.
Jahan Ramazani. Can Poetry
Console a Grieving Public? Poetry Foundation. 2006.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68676/can-poetry-console-a-grieving-public-56d248486a430
Kristina Grish. F*ck
You Haiku. S&S/Simon
Element. 2021.
Lourdes Lopes-Ropero. Perimeters
of Grief: Elegy in and Out of Bounds in Fred D’Aguiar’s Memorial Poetry. Miscelanea. Vol 64. University
of Zaragoza. 2021.
N.
K. Denzin. Interpretative Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st
Century. Sage Publications.1997.
Richard Gold, Elizabeth Jordan. Grief,
Poetry, and the Sweet Unexpected. Death Studies, 07481187, Vol. 42, Issue
1. 2018.
Susanne Gannon. “Picking at the Scabs”:
A Post structural Feminist Writing
Project.
Qualitative Inquiry,
Vol. 8, Iss. 5, pp. 670-682. 2002.
"Picking
at the Scabs": A Post structural Feminist Writing Project
(opal-libraries.org)
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge - Wikipedia