Which Comes First, the Writing or the Tears?

It’s always fascinating to see or hear about how writing has affected the reader but sometimes the most dramatic effect is on the writer. I keep thinking about the way I ended that poem I posted on here last time titled, I Have Sung My Soul Out. I have never quite figured out where that ending came from. I sure didn’t have it in mind when I started the piece. It just showed up when I got there and I’ve never been sure whether it works well or not of even what it means exactly.

I took a songwriting workshop a few years ago with the great Massachusetts singer/songwriter, Bob Franke. It didn’t make a songwriter of me, I’m not sure that’s going to happen but I hope to try some more. (Are you listening, Lindy?) I don’t even remember much that Bob told us in that 4 hours except for something I have quoted to every writing group or class I have ever taught, lead, or spoken to since. He said, (roughly) “If you don’t shed any tears somewhere in the process of writing a song you didn’t get close enough to the truth.” Looking back I see a lot of poems I have written that didn’t cause any tears. I also see a few that did and, you know what? Those are the best of my work. I’m not going to throw away the rest but I am going to continue to write and as I do, I intend to try to “get close enough to the truth” to make me cry and, hopefully that will move readers as well.

Ok, so here’s one that did make me cry in the writing. It’s a slice of my life. This poem was first published in Blood and Thunder, a journal from the University of Oklahoma.


Dad's Room—ICU—Woodward Hospital


Fifteen years of emergency admissions,
strung on various tubular indignities,
when you could only force one word
between each gurgling breath,
I must have heard you tell two dozen nurses,
"Mr. Cain died in 1958,
my name is Elmer."