Writing About Fear Without Writing a Dark Poem
Fear is the most overwrought subject in poetry and the most likely to be a drama. A judge on the three moves that turn a fear poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the fear or about you, and the one image that always works.
Fear is the most overwrought subject in poetry, and it is the most likely to be a drama. Every contest pile has a stack of fear poems that are about the darkness and the trembling and the way the fear is the thing that takes over, and the drama is the thing that makes the poem a performance instead of a poem.
The fear poem that works is not about the fear. It is about the person who is afraid.
The drama trap
The drama poem is the one that tells you how bad the fear felt. The darkness, the trembling, the way the fear is the thing that takes over. It is accurate and it is flat, because the fear is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader can feel for themselves.
A poem about fear should not describe the fear. It should describe what the fear did to the person who is afraid.
The three moves that turn a fear poem into a real one
Move one: put a person in it. The fear poem that works has a person in it, a child, a parent, a self. The fear is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the fear, not the fear itself.
Move two: give the fear a body. The fear should be doing something to the body, the hands that are shaking, the voice that is breaking, the eyes that are looking at the dark. If the fear is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.
Move three: let the fear change you. The best fear poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the fear is the thing that changed them. The fear is the agent; the poem is the change.
The question that decides
Here is the question I ask when I am judging a fear poem: is this poem about the fear, or is it about the person in the fear? If the answer is the fear, it is a drama. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.
The drama poem says 'this is how bad it felt'. The real fear poem says 'this is what the fear did to me'. The difference is the difference between a performance and a life.
A worked example
Bad: 'I was afraid and the darkness was all around me and I could not breathe.' The fear is the subject; the speaker is absent.
Better: 'I have learned to sleep with the light on in the hall, the way I did when I was five, and I do not know if I am doing it for the fear or for the memory.' The fear is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who has been changed by the fear, not the fear itself.
Where it goes wrong
The trap is the poem that is a performance of the fear. The performance is not a poem; it is a drama. The poem is the thing that the fear did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.
If you want to see a fear poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on anxiety and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The fear is the stage. The person is the play.
Keep reading
For the craft side, the fear collection covers the deeper method. The imagery module is the page to read next, and the negative-space module is where the work goes when it is done.
By Writory Editorial, for Writory.
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