A sad world turns to poetry
As the world is rocked by a number of bad events, people are using poetry as ‘a kind of emergency first-aid kit’, writes
The era that we are living in has been marked by a decidedly grim series of happenings: a pandemic, war, climate crisis, corruption, civil unrest, species extinction; the list goes on.
But buried deep within the bad have been some nuggets of good, like the plethora of fine poetry that has been produced as a result.
Cataclysmic events serving as fodder for creatives is a hot topic likely to be discussed at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival, which sees a number of poets join the journalists, authors, teachers and speakers to reflect on their works of past and present.
Poets have a talent for turning the world’s dross into literary gold.
Selina Tusitala Marsh, an Auckland-based teacher and former Poet Laureate who will be speaking at the festival, says that crisis ‘‘is when the story comes’’.
Marsh will be taking part in three events, one of which will see her discussing her revered graphic memoirs Mophead and Mophead Tu.
She is currently working on the third instalment to the series, which she describes as being about ‘‘anxiety and personal crisis’’. Marsh is no stranger to writing in times of struggle.
‘‘When everything is amazing and beautiful and wonderful it’s too easy to fall into cliche´ d language and cliche´ d ways of framing that experience,’’ she explains, describing how she has to dig deep to find new ways to describe happiness and love, but there’s a far more urgent relationship with the pen when pain is present.
Poet, professor, and writer of short stories Bill Manhire, CNZM, is quick to agree. Tragedy is a recurring motif through his most recent body of works, Ockham NZ Book Award winner Wow, with poems spanning climate change, species loss (on the NZ Huia no less), alert level lockdowns and the Christchurch mosque attacks.
‘‘It’s very easy to write about sadness, loneliness, misery and the public disasters of the world,’’ Manhire continues, ‘‘but it’s far less easy to simply say on the page ‘hey, I’m feeling really happy today’.’’
It is evident that Henry De Montherlant’s ‘‘Happiness Writes White’’ aphorism is one that rings true for most creatives. Putting pen to paper is likely a natural response to the troubling state of the world because there is a desire to process and work through emotions in a way that is often not needed during joyous moments.
Tracey Slaughter, a poet and the editor for Poetry New Zealand, can ‘‘definitely anecdotally attest’’ to the fact that poetry is a medium that people seem to reach for in times of crisis and stress. She describes how there was an influx of pieces submitted to Poetry NZ last year, many of which came from first-time writers.
‘‘There were people who hadn’t written poetry before but spoke of turning to it during the Covid crisis, as a way to express and release emotion amidst the strange pressures of the period.’’
Writing during crisis to produce a cathartic experience and a source of self-healing is a notion acknowledged and used by current New Zealand Poet Laureate David Eggleton.
Eggleton, who will be speaking alongside Marsh during one of his three Auckland Writers Festival events, describes poetry as ‘‘a kind of emergency
‘‘It’s very easy to write about sadness, loneliness, misery and the public disasters of the world. But it’s far less easy to simply say on the page ‘hey, I’m feeling really happy today’.’’ Bill Manhire, above
first-aid kit’’ for ‘‘psychic damage, personal trauma and loss’’. It is an aid called upon by both writers and readers alike.
Marsh describes the role of a poet as being ‘‘no therapist, trained counsellor, or psychologist’’, but instead a ‘‘doctor of storytelling’’.
Poetry offers a community of shared worries and concerns and, for those who are unable to articulate feelings themselves, stanzas birthed from tragedy concisely frame emotions in a way that readers can relate to. It’s the reason behind poems’ omnipresence at funerals.
‘‘I’ve written poems that people have found helpful,’’ says Manhire, touching on how his poignant Erebus Voices – a poem he wrote for Sir
Edmund Hilary at the commemorative service at Scott Base in Antarctica – went on to support numerous people who lost family members in the Erebus air tragedy.
Kate Camp, who will be taking part in a talk alongside Manhire to discuss her recent works How To Be Happy Though Human, describes how it is ‘‘the rhythmic nature of poetry’’ that offers the most comfort.
She argues that the content can be irrelevant, because the simple act of reading or hearing the words, with their soothing repetition, rhymes and alliteration, can provide solace.
Camp herself has memorised lines from particular poems, and carries them around with her to be called upon whenever in need of consolation.
‘‘It might not be the poem itself that is particularly comforting. But it’s the familiarity that’s like an old friend, a comfort blanket.’’
Poets, the pied pipers of the literary realm, have the ability to sooth the most saddened of souls, while poetry itself has long been a prescription for grief, anxiety and sadness.
When describing poems, Eggleton himself refers to them as being like ‘‘soothing balms’’ that tell the reader they ‘‘are not alone in the world’’.
The relationship between crisis and poetry may be a dependent one, but at least that means if the rapidly-changing news cycle continues to throw up devastating headlines, we know we will can find solace in the stirring words produced as a result.