Poesy: Catharsis or connection?

As a child, classical poetry simply flew over my head, and I was bored to death by the nature-poetry that we were made to read (and rote) in school.

I was completely oblivious to the power of poetry until I found myself in very painful circumstances. Someone I trusted lied to me, and left me all alone to rue it. I felt hurt, and the feeling grew day by day, smothering me, taking over my life. I found it hard to concentrate on my studies, kept bursting into tears spontaneously, and disappearing into hours of gloom.

And then suddenly, one night I took a pen to paper (no, that was just an expression: I took finger to laptop) and jotted down these lines in my blog:

Together we built

A wall of trust.

Little did I know,

That while I was sleeping,

You built a backdoor.

It was then that I realized that poetry could be simple and expressive too, and it need not be hackneyed and formal. I developed a sudden hunger for expressions born of emotional experiences, and began trailing the blogosphere to feed my newly found addiction. More and more I felt that much of poetry was confessional, like my poems.

Yukta Bajracharya, in her blog, wrote an ode to her braces. Prajesh SJB Rana reminisced about subtle moments, and Ayushma Regmi had a post on her mental dyslexia.

Why would these persons want to write pieces that had no meaning for anyone else other than themselves?

Poetry, in this form, is a means of sharing feelings that you cannot share otherwise. Well known poet Sulochana Manandhar believes true poets write in moments of extreme anguish. She remembers when, during the decade-long Maoist conflict, almost a hundred people had died in an attack in Jajarkot. Sensitive person that she is, she could not sleep all night. She suddenly got up and penned down four lines about her anguish. “When you write down true feelings that come out of your deepest emotions, poetry becomes power,” says she.

More and more I found poets who claimed their poetry was for themselves. “Much of my early poetry was angry,” says Ayushma, an educationist and poet. “It was more catharsis than anything else.” There, that elusive word, signifying relief and satisfaction, poetic justice and emotional closure, all in one. I realized that this was what my first poem had meant to me. I had no way of reaching the person I addressed (he was not the reading type, so there was no risk of him ever coming across my blog). And yet, simply writing this down gave me a tremendous feeling of relief.

At this point, it does not matter whether or not anyone reads your poems, just writing it down is enough. Prajesh, a student, is one of those poets who will say what he has to say, put it out there on a blog, and forget about it. Sometimes it is months before he realizes that he has a comment on his blog.

Even though he insists that poetry has no meaning if it is not shared, acclaimed poet Manu Manjil has an interesting insight about his writing process. “When I write a poem, I don’t tell anyone before I’m ready,” says he. “But my friends say they can tell when I finish a poem, just by the glow on my face.” Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that Manjil is ready to pay for any number of teas when he has finished with a poem, but his glow does say something about how satisfying the process of writing is for a poet.

Poetry is an art, and like all arts, provides a refuge for the artist. But just as a poem has many layers of meaning, so does the art of poetry has many layers of understanding. Once their writing matures and they get over the early angst, many poets explore poetry as a form of expression.

“Sometimes, when I share something with friends, they don’t pay attention,” says Bhuwan Pokharel, a student in Finland and an avid blogger. “But when I say the same thing artfully through poetry, they admire it.”

In this form, poetry becomes a subtle means of expression, a way of artfully arranging words to convey a certain statement. Whether poets write for catharsis or for art, all of them feel good when their statement is understood. “Poetry is also a way of seeking solidarity with likeminded individuals, when you feel misunderstood by the ones closest to you,” says Ayushma. As I look at the comments on my poems from all corners of the world who (seem to) understand exactly what I mean, I cannot help but agree.

No poet is indifferent to feedback, even those who write solely for catharsis, like Prajesh, find positive comments encouraging. At the extreme end of this viewpoint is Manu Manjil, who believes an unseen poem is like an undiscovered valley: useless. “If the poet simply wanted to enjoy his feelings, he can do that even without writing it out,” says he. He reads out his poems to a few close friends, and if they like it, he reads at a bigger forum. If they don’t, the poem simply disappears from his repertoire. But for most poets, simply reaching out and forging a connection to another person is fulfilling. 

For Ayushma, after her angst-ridden phase ended, poetry became a way to share all kinds of feelings, intense and everyday, sad and happy. She wrote for herself and for a few close friends who read her work regularly. Through her work she spoke to them things she could not say face to face. Yukta, who is very active in reciting poetry, feels that spoken poetry gives it more life. It reaches out to more people in an instant than the written word, and she can immediately feel their reaction. It also provides her a new way of looking at her own work, and ways for her to grow.

“Poetry is as individual as a thumbprint” says Sulochana. “And yet, individual feelings are also universal, and this sharing of feelings brings you closer to the next person.”

And in this human connection that it forges, perhaps, lies the secret to the power of poetry.

Published in Republica on March 21 (World Poetry Day) 2014, Page 11