Poetry Pals - Week 9 - Courage/Outrage
Writing about people you don’t want to write about.
Nelly from
this week gave us a lovely poem to read. Insert by Salena Godden. A interesting, humorous, and yet also angry poem. It had the potential for lots of swearing which I liked a lot, or not if you were that way inclined, at which point I would ask ‘why not?’ and point you to various studies that show swearing is a great stress relief etc. but this is the internet not inside my head so I won’t.I knew I wanted to write a bit of an angry poem so loved the prompt.
….could this poem serve as inspiration for our own poetry? Perhaps, “Insert here a poem in response to the…” is a good launch point? A news headline? A recent article you’ve read... Or … start off using her structure to discover the crux of your piece and take it from there. When you read this poem where do you immediately head?
Much less prescriptive than last week, which I like as I don’t need to ruminate so much, and I need to conserve energy this week as off to look after the MIL for three days.
I gave it a try. I chose my subject easily. My evil step witch mother with whom I have zero relationship but was talking about with my neighbour recently so she was at the front of my mind. The subject was easy to choose, but it took three attempts to even start a poem and another much longer one written and written off. I wanted to write about her but I also didn’t. So that was what I wrote about in the end. It would be so fun to rant and rail, but it also stresses me out, and that gives her hold over me, and I don’t want that either. It was quite cathartic though to delete those unwanted drafts. I often save them and use parts another time, but it was good to purge this time.
I could but I won’t
I could write about her.
I want to but she doesn’t deserve it.
I don’t want to give her the attention
she thinks she so richly deserves.
But it wouldn’t be the kind of attention she wants.
I wouldn’t be fawning, or attentive to her.
If I wrote about her,
the scheming manipulative bitch she is,
It wouldn’t be pleasant.
It wouldn’t be flattering.
It would be cruel and honest.
She is evil, vile, a narcissist.
She twists people to her,
controlling them, pulling strings
she tied to them when they were distracted.
If I wrote about her
I would twist the knife, open a wound
So big her world would dissolve.
She thinks she inspires loyalty.
She thinks she wins.
She is wrong.
So I won’t write about her.
She’s a nothing, a nobody,
not even worth my gaze.
I feel so little for her
Not even hate
She doesn’t deserve even that.
March 2024So there we are. Shorter this week, possibly not sweeter. Please click the heart if you liked this, and let me know who you wouldn’t write about in the comments.
I think probably the worst thing you can do to a narcissist is withhold attention. This feels very meta to me--writing about how you aren't going to write about someone. Kind of like being caught in a time-travel loop, if that make sense? The poem's first three stanzas negate the final one, making the whole thing say more than is contained in its literal words. (As poetry does.)
As for me, I won't write about my children's father (another narcissistic person). Given him too much of my life already.