Does anyone else feel this when writing?

[vampiredust]

Does anyone get really emotional when they write poetry? is that a good thing?

it's been happening to me a lot lately. I was writing a poem this morning and was practically crying when I was writing it.

 

[bogusbrig]

Does anyone get really emotional when they write poetry? is that a good thing?

it's been happening to me a lot lately. I was writing a poem this morning and was practically crying when I was writing it.

I'm completely the opposite or at least when I write my best stuff. It is as much an intellectual exercise for me but I think my best work has an high intellectual content as opposed to expressive content. If I write when I'm full of emotion or feeling for a subject I write junk. I might write the odd stanza or phrase that I can later cannablise but that is usually about it.

I actually think the best work of any type of artist is probably done when they are completely lucid but we like to think work comes from the heart rather than the brain. Many people have the image of van Gogh painting while he is mad and passionate (blame Kirk Douglas) but in reality he painted when he was calm and lucid and intellectually understood what he was trying to convey. I'd put money on it that this is how the best poets work.

 

[TheRainMan]

. . . in reality he painted when he was calm and lucid and intellectually understood what he was trying to convey. I'd put money on it that this is how the best poets work.

so would I.

 

[Tzara]

Does anyone get really emotional when they write poetry? is that a good thing?

it's been happening to me a lot lately. I was writing a poem this morning and was practically crying when I was writing it.

I sometimes have written things when emotional, but as bb said, for me that usually translates to bad. And occasionally I get emotional when writing, but that is usually more a matter of me laughing at my own jokes. Oddly, the ones that make me hysterical don't often seem funny to other people.

But I'm not sure I completely agree with bb's comment (seconded my Mr. Rain)

. . . in reality he painted when he was calm and lucid and intellectually understood what he was trying to convey. I'd put money on it that this is how the best poets work.

Besides famous emotional wrecks like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman (all of whom were pretty good poets, I think), I'd point to Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" as an example. I'd be willing to bet Owen was pretty angry when he wrote that poem. I would think he would have had to be.

So being calm I would say is not necessarily a condition of doing one's best work. But being lucid, yes. Poetry is craft, and requires careful thought about which words to use, where to place them, how to break the lines, etc. So rationality is very important. Even crazy St. Sylvia edited her work. Obsessively, as I understand it.

 

[wildsweetone]

i might be barking up the wrong tree, but...

eventually our emotions will come out while we're working through difficult events or times. i'll lay it on strong by saying perhaps the grief process is beginning now that you've begun writing about something you've not gone in depth with before.

my advice. keep writing. keep in mind that it is merely a process - the writing and the grief - and that you will come out at the other end with understanding you didn't have before.

by the way, you're certainly not writing rubbish. your writing is different compared to what you've done before, but it is not rubbish.



...i wrote a poem last year for a courageous young girl who touched my heart. i cried with grief before i wrote it, i cried whilst writing it, and i continue to cry each time i read it... but now my emotions have turned more to acceptance, and when i cry it is for her family, not for her. the poem i wrote was not what i would consider technically one of my best now, however it was the best that i could do at that time and it touched many hearts and helped many people to understand a little better.


sometimes it's not about the 'best writing', sometimes it's about more than that.

i think working through what you need to work through will give you a perspective at the end that you didn't have when going into the exercise. i think it will help your spirit to grow and i think that all your future writing will in some way benefit from this experience.

don't give up, even when it gets tougher. i am at the other end of your connection if you need an ear or a shoulder and you think mine will help.

 

[Angeline]

Not during the act of writing. When I'm actually writing I'm in some kind of zone that's outside emotion, outside anything but the process of saying what I need to say and finding the right way to say it. Often I'll cry later, after I've digested what I've written. Usually that happens when I've been writing about things I remember from my childhood.

 

[normal jean]

Does anyone get really emotional when they write poetry? is that a good thing?

it's been happening to me a lot lately. I was writing a poem this morning and was practically crying when I was writing it.

Yeah, Chris, happens to me all the time. well, not ALL the time, but frequently enough that it makes me wonder if its a normal thing. Im glad you brought this up.

Im with Tzara on teh laughing thing,. I have written while feeling lkike a court jester, have written while angry, and the anger poems are by far my worst. They usually rhyme




julie

 

[Guest]

Does anyone get really emotional when they write poetry? is that a good thing?

it's been happening to me a lot lately. I was writing a poem this morning and was practically crying when I was writing it.

I get like that when I'm in a "down" mood. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and my writing is often influenced by PTSD (anxiety, major depression, etc.) and by the reasons surrounding my disorder.

It's OK, Christian. Poets/Writers are deep thinkers in that we draw from our emotions, expressing them in a way that puts depth and color in our poetry/writing. It's good thing, albiet it can be quite draining as well.

 

[unapologetic]

Me too!

I'm completely the opposite or at least when I write my best stuff. It is as much an intellectual exercise for me but I think my best work has an high intellectual content as opposed to expressive content. If I write when I'm full of emotion or feeling for a subject I write junk. I might write the odd stanza or phrase that I can later cannablise but that is usually about it.

I actually think the best work of any type of artist is probably done when they are completely lucid but we like to think work comes from the heart rather than the brain. Many people have the image of van Gogh painting while he is mad and passionate (blame Kirk Douglas) but in reality he painted when he was calm and lucid and intellectually understood what he was trying to convey. I'd put money on it that this is how the best poets work.

Thanks for sharing this. I was starting to think that I'm weird, but that's how it works for me, too. Reading poetry is an emotional experience, but writing it is very regimented. I literally have a weekly appointment with myself to write poetry. If I don't do it this way, I never get around to it. I got this idea from something Mary Oliver wrote (don't always like her poetry by the way, but this struck a chord with me). She said that if Romeo and Juliet hadn't made and kept appointments with each other, they wouldn't have been one of the great love stories, and that a poet should treat his/her muse the same way. Of course, I am highly left-brained, so working with in set frameworks is what brings out my best stuff.

 

[HotKittySpank]

i don't cry over it unless it sucks ; ) i do write about things that have made me cry however, and it brings those feelings back for me, makes the work more real if i can connect with the feelings i had at the time.

i have found that i get extreme joy when i feel good about what i've written. sort of a bouncy, giddy feel that make people roll their eyes at me.

as for crying, its good for you. don't be afraid to express your emotions. your art is an expression of your thoughts and feelings on a specific subject. if you become overly emotional, try stepping back, take a break and it will clear your thoughts, help you translate your emotion into thought more clearly.

hope this helps. hugs, --j

 

[Liar]

When I get emotional like that, I can barely write anything coherent at all. So if I do, while writing, I'll have to stop and calm down. Not that that happens very often. If I write about a theme, it's one that I have processed well and that has settled. It's not until then that I can get my head around it, and give it words that makes others understand what it's about.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Just wanted to throw my support in here too. I agree with some of the others. We all draw from so many things when we write. How can it not affect us, before, during and after.

 

[MyNecroticSnail]

I sometimes have written things when emotional, but as bb said, for me that usually translates to bad. And occasionally I get emotional when writing, but that is usually more a matter of me laughing at my own jokes. Oddly, the ones that make me hysterical don't often seem funny to other people.

But I'm not sure I completely agree with bb's comment (seconded my Mr. Rain)Besides famous emotional wrecks like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman (all of whom were pretty good poets, I think), I'd point to Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" as an example. I'd be willing to bet Owen was pretty angry when he wrote that poem. I would think he would have had to be.

So being calm I would say is not necessarily a condition of doing one's best work. But being lucid, yes. Poetry is craft, and requires careful thought about which words to use, where to place them, how to break the lines, etc. So rationality is very important. Even crazy St. Sylvia edited her work. Obsessively, as I understand it.

God, you are good.
I'd be willing to bet Owen was quite a bitter fucker when he wrote that. Shame he couldn't recite it to Haig, Foch...
at gunpoint.
Speaking of gunpoints
on the other hand, I think Rimbaud had a lot of fun with his work, laughing to himself, perfecting his craft.

 

[fieryjen]

I don't usually cry over a poem when I write it... I get a bit emotional, but usually I just shake slightly, when I'm excited about as particular line that seems to express what I want to say particularly well. That's about the extent of it.

Last night I cried when I jottet down some lines... it was a happy subject, when what I write is usually dark, and often sad. I have no idea why happy makes me cry and sad doesn't.

 

[wildsweetone]

wouldn't the right balance be to be completely emotional whilst writing and completely logical, rational, clear-thinking etc whilst editing?

poets are emotional creatures after all... wouldn't you say?

 

[HotKittySpank]

i'm taking back what i said -

today, while i did not cry, it was the desire to cry that had me scribbling furiously to rid myself of said desire...

now that it is out, tomorrow i will go back with a hard eye and decide it it is worth saving or if i should put a match to it and get rid of the evidence.

funny how in the middle of chronicling misery, i stumbled upon a news story that turned my ache the other way and that lovely discovery was written in as well.

so, in a way the write helped as it was intended to, even if it should never be intended for other eyes.

; )

 

[champagne1982]

wouldn't the right balance be to be completely emotional whilst writing and completely logical, rational, clear-thinking etc whilst editing?

poets are emotional creatures after all... wouldn't you say?

I couldn't agree more with this. I write a lot of my latest poems on the passion thread. It leaps through my fingertips and lands on the keyboard as I emote all over the place. Messy? Yes. Passion? Absolutely.

When it's taken from there and workshopped on one of our edit/feedback threads here, I feel I gain so much insight and clarity as to my motivations, Eventually, I become chillingly brutal and chop bits off, mercilessly.

 

[FifthFlower]

Wordsword Preface to 1802 Edition of Lyrical Ballads

For me, emotion is present, or at least a deep interest in what I want to say, or I wouldn't bother with it at all.

I had to look this up on the web, but it is something I remember hearing about, probably from school, and I wasn't an English major. I think the following lines from Wordsworth's Preface to the 1802 edition of Lyrical Ballads may be underlying the responses here.

I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

I recall this being used as a justification for being non-emotional while writing, but on reading it now, I don't think that was Wordsworth's intent.