In this year’s F.T. Prince Memorial Lecture, “Forms of Grief: Elegiac Writing and Strict(er) Poetic Forms,” Dr Mary Jean Chan discussed their use of various poetic forms in communicating grief. Chan argued that grief possesses “no narrative, just overwhelm,” and posits that strict poetic structures serve as a necessary vessel to “contain” that emotion.
Juxtaposed against the freedom of a diary or journal, Chan found that writing in strict poetic forms helped guide their grief. While they were confined by the necessary rules of writing a sonnet or tanka, they could still “freely roam within the boundary.” In doing so, they found themselves stumbling into words and ideas that they would not necessarily have put into language if they were writing without constraint. The poems they write must come to an end, even if the feeling they are drawing from does not.
In their discussion of the specular poem, a poetic form in which the back half of the poem repeats the lines of the front half in reverse order, changing only in punctuation, Chan described the structure as “grief told twice.” The need for the poem to make sense both backwards and forwards causes both reader and poet to grapple with the different meanings contained within the same words. Writing within the structure forces repeated revisions by the poet to keep both halves of the poem meaningfully comprehensible, bringing catharsis to emotions that are otherwise too nebulous to grant such relief.
In communicating their use of poetic forms, Chan’s lecture adhered to a relatively strict structure of its own. Chan would present quotes from various poets integrated with their own analysis before presenting a form, an example of a poem following said form, then their own poetry. As someone relatively unfamiliar with poetry, the pattern of the lecture informatively presented many poets and their work around grief and forms without leaving me feeling out of my depth.
Having failed to maintain multiple diaries and journals myself, Chan’s lecture was as relatable as it was insightful. Writing freely about my emotions tends to leave me experiencing less of a linguistic liberation and more of a complete freefall. I circle the emotional drain over and over until, in my frustration, I pull the plug on the experiment entirely. Rather than it being an issue of my own psychological shortcomings, perhaps my approach was fundamentally flawed to start with.
