Writing About Loss Without Writing a Sad Poem

Loss is the most common subject in poetry and the most likely to be a sob story. A judge on the three moves that turn a loss poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the loss or about you, and the one image that always works.

Loss is the most common subject in poetry, and it is the most likely to be a sob story. Every contest pile has a stack of loss poems that are about the grief and the sadness and the way the person is gone, and the sadness is the thing that makes the poem a sob story instead of a poem.

The loss poem that works is not about the loss. It is about the person who is left.

The sob-story trap

The sob-story poem is the one that tells you how bad the loss felt. The grief, the missing, the ache, the way the person is gone. It is accurate and it is flat, because the loss is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader can feel for themselves.

A poem about loss should not describe the loss. It should describe what the loss did to the person who is left.

The three moves that turn a loss poem into a real one

Move one: put a person in it. The loss poem that works has a person in it, a parent, a friend, a self. The loss is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the loss, not the loss itself.

Move two: give the loss a body. The loss should be doing something to the body, the hands that are empty, the eyes that are looking at the empty chair, the voice that is saying the name to an empty room. If the loss is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

Move three: let the loss change you. The best loss poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the loss is the thing that changed them. The loss is the agent; the poem is the change.

The question that decides

Here is the question I ask when I am judging a loss poem: is this poem about the loss, or is it about the person in the loss? If the answer is the loss, it is a sob story. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.

The sob-story poem says 'this is how bad it felt'. The real loss poem says 'this is what the loss did to me'. The difference is the difference between a complaint and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'My mother died and I am so sad and I miss her every day and I will never forget her.' The loss is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I still set the table for two on Sundays, and I do not know if I am doing it for her or for me.' The loss 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 loss, not the loss itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a complaint about the loss. The complaint is not a poem; it is a grievance. The poem is the thing that the loss did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

If you want to see a loss poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on grief and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The loss is the stage. The person is the play.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the death poems collection covers the deeper method. The elegy form is the page to read next, and the Unheard Voices is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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