It just hit me – the despair, the emptiness, and the the utter hopelessness. I was thinking of how Anne Sexton put it in her poem, “Wanting to Die,” But suicides have a special language./ Like carpenters they want to know which tools./ They never ask why build.
Those are words that express real meaning and understanding for me, now.
I guess it has something to do with the time of the year. Holidays lately have seemed so empty, lonely and I become more acutely aware of these things. Maybe we become most aware of being alone when we have to be alone for a Holiday like Christmas… maybe we also feel most depressed, if life is depressing, at this time of year. I used to think it was because of something bad that happened around the Christmas and New Years time of year but that time has passed. It just seems like this is such a particularly depressing period, a particularly hopeless time.
I think about how I have been drawn to depressing music, and poems at certain times/periods. I think we as poets and writers recognize that there is something shared in human experience. In my experience, sometimes, when most depressed, I’d read Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton writing about suicide, because they got it… They wrote about experiences that I’ve felt, the way I’ve felt, like now. It is so helpful to know that someone else felt the same way at some point. Or maybe I’d put on music by Pink Floyd. Some musicians, singers and bands have been known to write sad songs but you can really hear the despair in the depressing songs by Pink Floyd. There are others that are able to convey the same tone, or utter desolation and despair in their music, matching the music to the words of the song.
Is this entertainment? Maybe that’s why so many sad songs fail to convey the depths of utter despair, sadness and emptiness. Maybe they are afraid that such raw emotion wouldn’t sell. It’s easy to see why we sometimes want to read or hear such sad/depressing music and poems. One reason, I recognize is to feel that sense of connection; of knowing someone else felt the same way. If that’s so, maybe someone else will be moved by something I’ve written. If it’s sad or depressing, or conveys utter suicidal despair, maybe someone will find comfort in knowing that I can relate, or find some sense of connection in my words.
2 Comments
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