The Poetry of Anguish: Poetry as a Form of Therapy

In the Hindu epic, the Bhagavad Gita, the main character, a prince named Arjuna, and his charioteer, the avatar of the Divine in the form of the all-knowing Krishna, engage in a dialogue that is presented as a poem. Arjuna falls into despair at the start of the saga when he realizes that he is about to engage in battle with his own cousins, the Kauravas. In the midst of this painful inner conflict, his senses begin to shut down, his  sympathetic stress response kicks in, and he loses all hope.

While the author of the Gita doesn’t use the contemporary language of trauma, it is clear to the reader that Arjuna is the midst of a traumatic experience. Each layer of his existence has been afflicted by the moral quandary that he is forced to sit with and in.

In Chapter 1, verses 28 through 32 of the Gita:

Arjuna says to his charioteer, Krishna:

“Krishna, at the sight of these kinsmen arrayed for battle, my legs weaken, my mouth is parched, a shiver runs through my body and my hair stands on end. (second half of 28 and 29)

My bow, Gandiva, slips from my hand, and my skin too burns all over; my mind is reeling, and I can no longer stand. (30) And, Krishna, I see such omens of evil. No good can come from killing my own kinsmen in battle. (31) Krishna, I do not desire victory, nor the pleasures of kingdom. Of what use is kingdom or luxuries, or even life itself… (32)

When I first picked up the Gita more than 20 years ago, I read this section and cried for days. I couldn’t read beyond this part. From my own personal experiences of inner conflict and trauma, I knew this moment all too well. I stayed in this space with Arjuna.

The act of reading and writing poetry has always been deeply cathartic for me. Poetry making has always been an essential part of my life. I use it for processing difficult emotions and for learning to ask better questions about the nature of my life and all of existence. No one taught me how to formally do this.

The more I read poetry, the more I appreciate how the lines speak of the unspoken and define what is essentially undefinable by the logical mind. When I am in the midst of anguish, I use poetry as both therapy (to process the occurrences in my personal life and society at large) and an aesthetic outlet (to experience piercing moments of awe, sadness, wonder, and other experiences that lead me to revelations beyond words).

I want to share a poetry-making process with you that I developed, inspired directly by Arjuna’s traumatic moment in the center of the battlefield of his life:

1.    Pick a recent moment you want to digest, that has created some anguish or made you pause to reflect on existence (yep, that’s pretty big).

2.    When you begin to write, let go of all punctuation, capital letters, and sentence structure. Leave grammar behind in favor of descriptive words rather than proper subject/verb/object relationships.

3.    Write it out in free verse—just let it flow. Try to not think about what you are doing too much. Afterwards, you can go back, read it out loud, and arrange the words as they resonate for you.

4.    You can choose to create a poem using the following line scheme:

a.    Line 1: What are you seeing?

b.    Line 2: What are you hearing?

c.     Line 3: What are you smelling?

d.    Line 4: What are you tasting?

e.    Line 5: What is your relationship to your environment (proprioception)?

f.      Line 6: What is your relationship to the interior landscape (interoception)?

g.    Line 7: What is one thought that is arising from the totality of your experience?

I recently shared this process in a class I was co-leading. It was powerful to hear what everyone shared after taking only ten minutes to write a reflective poem. One person used the opportunity to process their experience of the presidential debate; another used it to describe a moment of holding their children. 

I also personally used the process to write about the recent transition of my first cousin. I had just attended the funeral. The entire experience felt surreal; I wanted to ground myself but also had a desire to capture the intensity and tragedy of the moment, as well as my grief. My cousin had died at the age of 21 from a drug overdose. I wrote the following poem the day after the celebration of his life.

Walking towards the vessel

I was unsure of what was to unfold

Hearing the sounds of sadness

I walked towards the corpse

Smelling like my grandmother’s rose garden

Biting my bottom lip

Maintaining my inner mountain

I leaned over to get a glimpse of the other side

As I approached

Angelic light filled the space

Between myself and this empty vessel

Caught between the remoteness of death and

The familiarity of life

I stood still

Waiting for his eyes to open

One of the factors that differentiates humans from animals is our ability to reflect on our life and utilize creativity as a contemplative tool. Poetry making is just one of many tools you may choose to use. Whether you utilize writing, art making, music, and/or theater, we all need tools to process the individual and collective narratives we live in, whether by choice, by birth, or by circumstance.

We all need ways to process the occurrences of our lives. Next time you have an experience or a conversation (or something happens in which you are impacted firsthand or as a bystander) that creates uneasy feelings inside you, I encourage you to turn to poetry. Read it, and write it! Consider turning to the process I shared above to process trauma or unease.

Feel free to share your musings or email them to me, as I would love to read them. May your explorations serve to help you utilize your own inner voice, so that you can move toward healing and understanding.