On poetry and trauma

“I’ve seen that life’s worst experiences can exist as strangers in us, separate, like people we don’t know and don’t want to know. Yet these worst experiences remain our passionate life companions.  I’ve seen that our emotions after life’s worst experiences can be sealed in a variety of containers, some buried, or in a black hole, some that explode unexpectedly, some that exist only in the public realm, some that exist only in private, some that exist in one part of ourselves and not in others. But I’ve also seen that through poetry, people can open these containers, and move their contents, these painful emotions, into new frames that are more open and repurposed for a meaningful life.”

Richard Gold “Poetry Saved My Life”,

The concept of opening containers, letting loose things so tightly held down, puts into words perfectly the release I feel when writing out my own experiences. So often, we bury things that have hurt and changed us as far down as we can while we struggle to survive them. While this may be necessary in the moment as we emerge on the other side of pain, blinking in the sunlight and struggling to see, eventually a part of processing, for me, is digging down and understanding what I’ve hidden and why.

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As a tool for therapy, one that’s accessible and creative and heartbreakingly personal, poetry for many is a lifeline. A thread that can reconnect us back to ourselves, our experiences, our bodies, and make them our own again. Where our own hearts can sometimes fail, poetry can step in and begin to build that bridge between our words and our souls. I’m no therapist, just a girl who’s seen a lot and lost a lot, and poetry has helped me heal time and time again.

Annamae Sax : Understanding Trauma, the Healing Process of Poetry

“Another element of poetry’s capacity to act as a force of healing is its grounding in connection and interconnection. There is solace in recogniz­ing that whatever happens to a person, someone before us has known it as well. Poetry’s evidence tells us that we are not singled out by our suf­fering; we are brought into the shared life of all who have lived and died before and with us.”

Jane Hirschfield

Link :

Understanding Trauma: the Healing Process of Poetry