How To Write A Bereavement Poem
Loss is as much a part of life as birth and death. As painful as loss is to experience, there is a solace to which the poet has access. In writing, the poet can process their loss in a meaningful way to help facilitate personal healing. Whether the loss is the end of a relationship or the more final loss of someone’s death, a poet has an outlet in words and verse. (For the sake of this guide, I am going to focus on death. However, please understand that any loss is experienced as a kind of death and the process of healing through poetry cannot be underestimated nor is there an intentional implication that death is the only real loss.)
When writing a bereavement poem, it is best to first write something in prose and not attempt to write a poem. I suggest this because it is easy, given the natural use of metaphor and abstractions in poetry, to write a poem that is so vague as to have nothing concrete for the reader to fully appreciate or understand your piece. The problem is that sometimes we are so close to the pain that it is hard to actually write about it. Caught between a rock and a hard place, we need to write about how we feel but what we feel is so overwhelming that what we write is likely going to be more safe than honest.
One of the best ways to begin writing about your pain is not in poetry but in prose. If you keep a journal, this is a natural outlet in which you can write what you are feeling. However, you may find that even this outlet is too emotionally difficult for you. Another useful means of writing through your grief is to write an unsent letter This is actually a journaling exercise that many psychiatrists have used and one that is accessible to anyone, even the non-poet. You write the letter as though you were going to give it to the person to whom the letter is addressed.
When a friend of mine was raped and murdered, my emotions were extremely raw and it was difficult for me to write about what had happened or how I felt about it let alone form all of this into a meaningful poem. I was shattered with grief and fueled by anger, going from one extreme to the next. As I rode through the waves of these emotions, I wanted to write a poem for my friend but knew that my writing would not be worthy of my friend’s memory. While the emotional energy behind the words would be raw and immediate, I anticipated that what I wrote would be redundant, the same words others had written when someone they knew died, or they would be so abstract as to have any real meaning.
Instead of trying to write a poem, I wrote my friend a letter. More than one, in fact. I just returned to the page time and again, writing in conversational prose all of the things I was feeling about her death, about her, about our friendship. I wanted to get into words the things I never said to her personally and ended up exploring a lot of things I had never fully faced about myself. I can’t remember how many of these letters I ended up writing but eventually I stopped, knowing intuitively that I had said all I wanted and needed to say.
Only then did I feel ready to sit down and write a poem. In the past, I have referred back to these prose writings from my journal or within these unsent letters to find elements which I could weave into my poem. This time I did not refer back to my letters. I wrote the poem, For Jenny, without rereading what I had already written. I have no doubt that if I were to compare my unsent letters with the final poem I would find parallel thoughts and ideas. It may be that sometime in the future I will refer to these prose writings and create another poem, a different poem, written from a different emotional place because more time will have passed and my ability to process the grief will be different.
You may find that you are asked to write a bereavement poem as part of a eulogy or a funeral service. Because of the expectations and time restraints, it would be easy to make the assumption that you do not have the luxury to spend time on writing a prose piece first. I would encourage you to please think again. The time you spend writing a passionate prose piece which you can set aside for at least a day will benefit you tremendously. You will find, as you write the prose piece, that you will remember details about the person from your shared past that you might not have given thought to in trying to write a poem. Whether you use every detail in your poem will be your choice but to not take the time to remember as much as you can before writing the poem is to cheat yourself and the poem itself of the richness of your emotional integrity.
How you choose to write your poem is ultimately up to you. Whether you decide to write a form poem (an ode or sonnet, using meter and rhyme) or free verse, your experience in writing this poem will be both painful and healing. You may also find yourself surprised by what you ultimately write. When I finished my poem for my friend, I was genuinely surprised by the anger that rippled through the lines. Recently, when a friend of mine asked me to write a poem for her boyfriend’s grandmother who had died a year ago, I was surprised to find that I wrote the poem from the viewpoint of her boyfriend.
Allow yourself to write the poem as it comes. Do not try to make it something different or conform it to the expectations of others. Frankly, it would be better for you to come empty handed, without the poem someone asked you to write, than to write a poem unworthy of your pain and memories. Above all else, honor the experience of writing your bereavement poem, aware that to do this will stir up a great deal of pain but promises an equal measure of healing.
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Posted in Education, Literacy - Reading and Writing
