There
is no correct definition or an algorithmic equation for poetry and writing
poems; poetry comes from within—the heart, the soul, the mind— whilst capturing
every essence of an entity. Poetry explains the real reasons we stay alive and
what we strive for, and even the consequences and “side effects” that come with
actually living, not just being alive. Poetry digs deep into the psyche and
pulls out emotions that the author may not have been able to find the words
for, or even the reader. Poetry involves a topic or a theme the author wants to
express to the reader while also a presenting a certain tone. It can bring out
the most powerful emotions whether it may be buoyant and euphoric or morbid and
somber; it strikes people with a flush of emotion and meaning in just a few
lines and stanzas as opposed to prose such as novels or short stories. Poetry
does not only have to be written and spoken, but it can be sung as well. Songs
are considered to be a form of poetry because their lyrics present a theme, tone
and have multitudinous sound devices, giving the listener the same evocation of
emotion as would a spoken poem. This is evident when comparing the song “Hurt”
by Nine Inch Nails to the poems “My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His” by
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, and “From Brick to Glass” by Aileen Buccella. These
four written works all incorporate main themes of sadness and emptiness with a
melancholy tone. The authors clearly are in a mood of despondency and a sense
of hopelessness.
In
the song “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, the lyrics convey a theme of sadness and
emptiness with a melancholy and dark tone. This is shown immediately in the
first two lines when he says “I hurt myself today/ To see if I still feel/ I
focus on the pain/ The only thing that's real/ The needle tears a hole/ The old
familiar sting” (Reznor). The author decides to inflict pain on himself with a
needle to remember the familiar sting of pain because emotional pain can be
just as agonizing as physical pain. He cannot seem to feel much emotion (emptiness)
and seems to need to feel, he hurts himself with a needle because to him, the
pain is a reminder that he is alive and he feels it’s the only way to connect
him with reality. He explains that he has done this before which is why the pain
feels very familiar to him; his feelings of emptiness is chronic. He continues to say, “Try to kill it all
away/ But I remember everything” (Reznor) and this shows that he He also is
inflicting pain on himself in hopes it would take it mind off of his emotional
pain and stop the thoughts but he can’t and he can’t help but feel the
emotional pain no matter how hard he focuses on the physical pain. He then says
“What have I become/ My sweetest friend/ Everyone I know/ Goes away in the end/
You could have it all/ My empire of dirt/ I will let you down/ I will make you
hurt” (Reznor). Reznor expresses his confusion and question who he is and what
he has become and one can infer that he may not have felt these emotions his
entire life. He also tells the reader or listener that he is frequently
abandoned in some sense and feels that those who enter his life tend to leave
it and leave him abandoned in his times of need. He admits that he will let
down those who care for him and hurt them which can also lead to the reason
why, as mentioned previously, people tend to leave his life. One can infer that
although he does not try to, he ends up disappointing people and hurting them
and they end up leaving him although he needs them and just needs care and
love. Then he proceeds to say “Full of broken thoughts/ I cannot repair”
(Reznor) and later says “You are someone else/ I am still right here” (Reznor).
Reznor is truly exemplifying his feelings of despair and heartbreak in those
four lines. He feels “broken” in a sense that he feels almost fragmented and
incomplete; not wholesome and less of a person. He’s hurting and the pain is
causing him to feel as if he cannot function—something that is “broken” is
something that does not work—and it can also express his feelings of emotional
detachment (i.e. broken pieces of glass or puzzle pieces not put together). This
is supported by the bad and depressing thoughts he may be having that force him
to continue to feel so somber and he does not know how to fix it or himself;
it’s nearly impossible. The feelings of abandonment seem to continue further
due to the face that he cannot fix him himself or put himself back together and
while the other person he is anonymously talking about is moving forward and
going through growth and change, he is still there in the same stage of despair
unable to grow with that person. Furthermore, he seems slightly apologetic
because he knows his broken thoughts have caused problems in his life and in
his relationships with others, especially the other person he seems to be
talking to. He may have tried to fix himself and “glue” the pieces back
together but he has been unable to and feels he cannot be “repaired”. This
inference ties back to earlier in the song when he explains that those he needed
the most have left him in the end because they could not handle him or because
he had unintentionally hurt them. He also may feel that the person has changed
unfavorably and has grown apart from the author and he explains that he is the
same person he always has been and he is still where he was before (with the
other person); he seems a bit lost and is resenting the other person for going
away. At the end when the author says, “If I could start again/ A million miles
away/ I would keep myself/ I would find a way” (Reznor) he explains that if he
could start all over and be far away from the aforementioned other person, he
would and he would keep away to prevent hurting them and disappointing them. He
seems to express the thought that if he were not here, the other person’s life
would be better or maybe even everyone who he had hurt or disappointed in some
way. Throughout the song, the author portrays a feeling of helplessness and
resigns to the end of all risky and possibly hurtful situations and assumes
that everyone leaves in the end anyway and all he does is hurt and disappoint
people. His burdensome thoughts and emotions have left him so hurt and
depressed that he has gotten to the aforementioned point of emptiness and will
do anything to take away the emotional pain he has, even if it means inflicting
his own physical pain.
The
poem “My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His” by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, is
similar to “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails because she also expresses (by nearly
personifying the term “grief”) themes of sadness with a melancholy tone. She
also conveys a theme of loneliness, as well. In the first line when she says,
“None ever was in love with me but grief/ She wooed me from the day that I was
born” (Coleridge), one can infer that the author has always felt a sense of
grief or despair and it seems to her that it has been since she was born and
never felt joyous. She then says “She stole my playthings first, the jealous
thief, / And left me there forlorn” (Coleridge) which tells the reader that
anything that brought the author joy and happiness, the “grief” would take it
away from her and left her feeling very lonely and sad. This is shown
furthermore when she says “The birds that in my garden would have sung, / She
scared away with her unending moan; / She slew my lovers too when I was young,
/ And left me there alone.” (Coleridge). This shows that whenever life gave
her a chance to enjoy being alive and to
be happy, the “grief” always overcame her and figuratively shooed all the birds
away and all her lovers, leaving her alone and deserted. This is similar to the
song because Reznor also mentions being abandoned and feelings of loneliness.
Moreover, they were both also left because of their state of mind which is
despair and anguish. In the last stanza when she says, “Grief, I have cursed
thee often—now at last/ To hate thy name I am no longer free; / Caught in thy
bony arms and prisoned fast, / I love no love but thee” (Coleridge), she
finally accepts that she is no longer able to curse her despair and curse the
monster inside her head that makes her always feel agony. Like Reznor, she is
resigning to the end and realizing that because she will never be able to rid
the “grief” she now chooses to accept it and feels as if it is the only thing
that she can love because the grief will always overcome her at any time she
tries to escape it. She has falling in love with her sadness.
The
poem “From Brick to Glass” by Aileen Buccella is a poem that I have written and
it has themes that are similar to both “Hurt” and “My True Love Hath My Heart
and I Have His” as well as a similar tone. My poem conveys the themes of
sadness, emptiness, and loneliness and I also have a very melancholy and
sometimes dark tone throughout the poem. In the beginning, I compared “how much
pain can you give a person before they break?” to filling a glass with water
before it spilling over and filling a balloon with air before it pops. This
shows that I was giving the reader an introduction into the entire poem by asking
them how much pain a person can take, indicating that the poem will be about
pain and my sadness. I then say, “each day filled with motions/ trudging
through a valley/ to aspire some kind of greatness/ not meant for me. / At days
end/ when I recollect at night/ I forget the date/ All have looked the same to
me”. I tell the reader that each day consist of just going through the motions
and having to push myself each minute just to get through the day; a day that
consists of aspiring to be something great and working towards a better future
that I feel is not meant for me because I am someone who tends to get good
things in life so a good future may possibly not be in my fates. Due to this,
every day looks the same and seems to be the same story but a different day.
There is always a list of things to take care of that never seem to go away and
constantly working towards the same thing. Then I continue to say, “If my
existence does have relevance/ Who is it relevant for? / The mother, / The
father, / Too much else to worry about. / The brother, / Confused and lost, /
Diseased from the Devil's poisoned lettuce. / The grandmother, / The
grandfather, / All else is abhorrent but they. / The uncle, / The aunt, / Only
want misery as company. / No friend knows me, / Not even my name”. I am trying
to explain that I feel as if my existence has neither meaning nor relevance. If
it is not relevant for myself, then who is it relevant for? I then explain why
it does not seem to be relevant for anybody by stating that my parents both
have too much else to worry about, my brother is confused and lost himself
while hooked on marijuana (devil’s lettuce). Furthermore, my [maternal]
grandparents seem to think that they are the pure essence of perfection and
literally everyone else in the world is “abhorrent”, including me. Then I
continue to explain that both my aunt and uncle (also on my mom’s side of the
family) are miserable beings who are bitter and spiteful and wallow in their
own misery whilst taking their anger out on everyone else and talking down to
them, also believing that they are the pure essence of perfection. Aside from
my family, I also mention that I do not have many friends, they barely even
know my name, thus backing up my feelings of self-irrelevance. As the poem
continues, I write that, “What didn't kill me, / Never made me stronger/ It
filled my heart with emptiness./ Late hours of the night, / Became early hours
into the morning/ Wide open eyes searching deep inside/ To give me a reason to
finally cry” to nullify the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
(unknown) by explaining that it merely made me empty and sometimes emotionless
because I have had to take so much pain. Due to this, I have laid awake many
nights searching for something to make me upset enough to cry, to finally let
out all the emotion I have accumulated over time due to the emptiness. Next, I
say, “I know now why they say, / You can get addicted/ To a certain kind of
sadness; / Because I'd rather feel something/ Than feel nothing at all. / How
does one leave their comfort zone/ If sadness is all I’ve ever known?” and I
try to ratify the expression “you can get addicted to a certain kind of
sadness” (unknown) because it seems I have, also due to the emptiness. This
ties in with the want to cry because I feel as if I would rather feel
something—even if it is pain—than feel nothing and the emptiness, much like
Reznor. Similar to Reznor, we both convey a large sense of sadness and emptiness
and a want to feel something whether physical or emotional. The next stanza
relates to Caleridge when I write, “Possibly the emptiness is a result/ of the
prolonged sadness/ Who overtook me at the crucial years/ The first five/ The
next 10/ The next five all over again” because I explain that I have always
felt this way ever since a young age, similar to Caleridge explaining that she
has always felt grief since a young age as well, thus unable to feel any other
emotion (i.e., happiness) other than sadness. In psychological terms, the
crucial years are the first five years of your life and are the years that
build the foundation to who you are, thus having the most important effect on a
being more than any other year to come. I tell the reader that sadness
“overtook” me during those years, meaning I’ve experienced loss and tragedy
very early in my life among many other unfortunate occurrences. The next ten
and next five all over again express the amount of years I have lived since
then and still have experienced nothing but tragedies and sadness. I also relate
to Coleridge when I later say, “The boy, the clink, the hand, the knife, the
brain/ All took new meanings for me. / But they say, / One does not know loss/
If they know not of gain; / And one does not know pain/ If they know not of
pleasure” also showing that I have known nothing else but sadness similar to
that of Coleridge. The boy, the clink (slang term for jail), the hand, the
knife, and the brain are all two-worded phrases that very briefly express some
of the unfortunate events that have taken place over my life time. As the poem
continues, I tell the reader how I have been told of all the people who have
suffered more than I or have it more worse than I and I then wonder if I were
happy, would those same people tell me that I could not be happy because there
are people who are happier and are better off? Then I continue to write, “But
no one was ever told/ of the girl who cried please! / for someone to tell
another/ That there is a girl out there/ With a dying heart/ Trapped inside a
subsisting prison/ Waiting to matter” and I express that I am left to felt as
if I do not matter because I am not dying nor have an extreme malady. All I
want is to matter and no one tells anyone that there is someone out there like
me, trapped inside and unable to leave her own living body (subsisting) and
life that can sometimes feel like a prison. A sense of loneliness, also similar
to that of Coleridge’s poem, is expressed in the lines, “The world has seven
billion people. / How can one have so much company/ Yet still feel all alone? /
These surreptitious thoughts, / These clandestine emotions, / Hidden with a
comedy persona/ So that maybe one day/ Euphrosyne would be proud of me” due to
how I state how many people actually exist and how many people surround me each
day but I still continue to feel lonely and alone. Statistically and
physically, it is impossible to be completely alone in life, even if no humans
existed. The earth is shared with many living species and organisms and
although I only counted people, that alone is a number large enough (although
small in comparison to the number of all living organisms) to make one realize
how “accompanied” they actually are. I also explain that my dark and sad
emotions and thoughts are hidden behind a façade that I compare to a persona,
which is the actual term for the comedy and drama masks that were once used in
plays to represent the mood of a character. The personas are known seen as
symbols of the theater and play productions. The persona I say in the poem that
I wear is a comedy persona, conveying that I pretend to be happy and mask the
true feelings inside. Euphrosyne is the greek goddess of good cheer, joy and
merriment which is why I say I wear the persona also in hopes that she would be
proud, possibly finally giving me true happiness and happy events. As my mind
in real life is skipping around and jumping from thought to thought, I wrote
the poem to follow the same form in hopes it would convey that very idea. Due
to this, I then jump to saying, “There have been some/ Who thought they were
mechanics; / Gave me duct tape and super glue. / And I was their project/
Failed too many times/ Sent to the junkyard. / Because who can love a girl/ who
does not love herself? / I told them/ to crumple a piece of paper/ and
apologize to it. / I asked if it were still crumpled/ They said yes. / Now the
paper is forever useless/ Because “sorry” did not fix it. / What was once
broken, / Will always have been broken”. I express to the reader that I have
loved before and I have been loved, but all have tried to “fix” me as if I was
a broken car or shattered glass. Some have even expected me to fix myself, as
if I had something detrimentally wrong with me. Because it has never worked,
they always left me and practically threw me away, forcing me to expect all of
those who enter my life or get very close to me will end up leaving so in
return I have locked away all vulnerability. My emotions are very similar to
Reznor’s feelings of abandonment when because he disappoints people and ends up
hurting them, they all leave and he resigns to the end of all relationships and
potential relationships, just as I have. I also feel the same as Reznor when he
expresses that he feels broken and has broken thoughts because something that
is broken to the point of no return can never be fixed, and even when something
is fixed, it will still always have been broken. This then diminishes the
impact of apologizing and takes away its sincerity. My thoughts jump again and
the next lines say, “Each day is a tiptoe through a field/ Some walk on grass
and flowers/ Others on spikes and bear traps./ Two kinds of people/ All running
to the same place, / Leaving what is now behind them/ All wanting to swim/
Among winsome broken pieces of sea glass/ With piercing sharp blade edges”. By
tiptoeing, I try to convey the idea of those who are all selfishly trying to
achieve success and some achieve it through secrets, lies and by deceiving others.
I explain that I feel as if there are two kinds of people on this earth: happy
people and sad people. I then state that some walk on soft grass and pretty
flowers because they achieve success more easily and have a more content life
than those who have to hurdle through many obstacles and pain to achieve the
same success with an overall feeling of discontent and sadness. Although there
are two kinds of people, we are all running to achieve the same main goals and
fighting to the finish and we leave the past behind us to work towards our
future—which we then make our present moment the past and do not encapsulate it
because we are so focused on the future. I then explain that we all want this
happy and joyous life and try our best to achieve what we think is good for us
but all good things in life come with a bad. Unfortunately, people aspire for
things that they think will make them happy but end up getting hurt or hurting
others and although they look great on the outside and in theory, they actually
can inflict a lot of hurt and distress. It is a dog-eat-dog world and a man’s
race to the finish line, all wanting to win the best life. My last stanza, “And
if we all exist/ In a sea full of life/ Of which we throw rocks into/ That sink
to the very bottom/ Then I, too/ Am sinking. / Slowly/ Painfully/ Impotently, /
Drowning” explains to the reader where I feel I stand within the “sea” which I
use as a metaphor for life and people that “swim” in it. I relate myself
through figurative speech to a rock that gets tossed into the “sea” that ends
up sinking to the bottom. The last few lines clearly convey my true and deep
emotions of sadness and grief and I relate existence as if I were slowly,
helplessly (similar to that of Reznor), and inevitably drowning—unable to
breathe.
All
three pieces exemplify the themes of sadness and loneliness whether it may be
through emptiness, abandonment, or grief. They all have a very melancholy and
dark tone that exchanges very deep and sorrowful emotions between the author
and the reader, possibly pulling the same emotions from deep inside the reader.
Although the three pieces explain different stories and thoughts, they all
attempt to evoke the same emotion from the reader whilst vulnerably expressing
their own deep emotions.
Works
Cited
Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth. "My True
Love Hath My Heart and I Have His." poets.org.
Academy of American Poets, 25 Aug 2013. Web. 4 May 2014. <https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-true-love-hath-my-heart-and-i-have-his>.
Reznor, Trent. "Hurt." The Downward Spiral. Trent
Reznor, 17 Apr 1995. Web. 4 May 2014.
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