Neil Hilborn
Quick answer: A craft guide to Neil Hilborn: form that mirrors compulsion, dark humour and the joke-to-gut-punch turn, plus what poets can learn from OCD and his books.
Neil Hilborn's poem OCD is one of the most watched slam performances ever recorded: his 2013 Rustbelt performance, in which repetition, stutter and looping lines enact the compulsions the poem describes, has gathered tens of millions of views. Born in 1990, Hilborn won the College National Poetry Slam as part of the Macalester College team in 2011 and became one of Button Poetry's flagship writers.
His subject is mental illness, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, suicidal ideation, and his craft insight is that form can perform the condition rather than describe it. That single idea, plus a comedian's timing, makes him essential study for anyone writing about states of mind.
Who he is
Hilborn came up through Minnesota's slam scene and the college circuit before OCD made him, briefly, the most famous performance poet on the internet. His collections Our Numbered Days (2015), which became one of the bestselling poetry books of its year, and The Future (2018) translate the stage work to the page while adding quieter poems the viral clips never show.
He is open about writing from ongoing illness rather than recovery's safe distance, and about touring while managing it. The honesty gives the funny poems their weight: the audience knows the jokes are load-bearing.
The signature moves
His poems run on a small set of powerful devices.
What you can learn
Ask what your poem's subject would do to the poem's form if it could. Anxiety might shorten lines to gasps; grief might keep restarting the same sentence; insomnia might refuse stanza breaks. Write one draft where the form performs the condition, and keep the effect only where it works without a footnote.
Time your turn like a comic: the sincere line must arrive while the reader is still smiling, one beat earlier than feels polite. Practise on a poem about something small before attempting it with heavy material. And borrow the romantic frame. If you write about illness or struggle, anchoring the poem in a relationship, someone watched, someone loved, someone lost, gives readers a human doorway rather than a diagnosis.
Where to start
Watch OCD first, since the performance is the poem's true text, then The Future and Joey. In print, Our Numbered Days is the essential collection, with The Future extending the same material toward hope. Comparing the page version of OCD to the performance is a complete lesson in what lineation can and cannot capture.
What poets can take from this
- Let the form perform the condition: loops, restarts, gasps, refusals.
- Land the sincere line one beat early, while the reader is still smiling.
- Name hard things plainly; euphemism drains confessional poems.
- Frame illness poems inside relationships to give readers a doorway.
- Compare page and performance versions of one poem to learn lineation.
Try it yourself
Choose a mental state you know well, insomnia, worry, longing, and write a poem whose form enacts it: let repetition, interruption or refusal of endings do what description cannot.
Questions
What is Neil Hilborn's famous poem OCD about?
It describes falling in love while living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, using repeated and looping lines to enact compulsion. His 2013 performance became one of the most viewed slam videos ever.
What books has Neil Hilborn written?
Our Numbered Days (2015) and The Future (2018), both with Button Poetry. Our Numbered Days was a bestseller and collects the poems from his viral years.
Does Neil Hilborn really have OCD?
Yes, he writes and speaks openly about living with obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder, and his work draws directly on that ongoing experience.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.