Reclaiming “bad writing” in literacy and Trauma Therapy

An interview with Jenna Lynch

The therapeutic benefits of writing have long been touted for trauma and addiction. But for many adults, writing—especially poetry—carries baggage from their early education when labels like “good” or “bad” began to stick. In her research around both literacy and recovery, Jenna Lynch explores how poetry in particular not only provides a safe medium for expression, but rebuilds student’s confidence to communicate. “I don’t think that dichotomy exists in poetry,” Lynch says, showing the power of new labels to transform one’s path forward.

Oftentimes, research has focused on poetry’s role in primary or secondary education, but you’ve explored it as a therapeutic tool for adult students. We’d love to learn more about your studies of poetry’s potential for those with histories of trauma or addiction. What were your methods and findings?
Yes, I recently published an article in The Journal of Poetry Therapy in which I reviewed the literature on poetry and adults with histories of addiction or trauma. I found that little attention has been paid to how poetry can be used as a motivational tool for adults in educational settings, with most research taking place in rehabilitation treatment programs.

In my experience working with adult students at The College of New Rochelle, I observed how poetry can be used as a way to promote personal and meaningful expression, challenge traditional views of language and syntax, and build confidence in literacy skills. It can be a powerful tool in helping students understand and unpack difficult experiences or to see them in new ways. It can be a point of entry into the past that feels more accessible because there is so much room for experimentation with language, form and syntax. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as naked or exposed as a piece of prose. I look forward to continuing this work in my future research.
 

For both creative writing and research, what led you to poetry as your chosen medium?

I’ve been reading and writing poetry since I was a child. I started out writing it before I became a regular reader of poetry. I used to enter those silly contests advertised in the Reader's Digest or the Penny Saver or something. I think everyone won! But it gave me the confidence to write and submit my work and to trust my voice. For me personally, poetry was an outlet for a lot of complicated emotions and experiences growing up; it allowed me the space to express myself without the fear of saying it aloud to another person. It’s probably also what drew me to the confessional poets. The poet Frank Bidart, when speaking on confession in poetry, describes it as having to do with the articulation of that which is most central to a person; as the attempt to get at the truth, even at personal cost. He says to confess in poetry is “to enter the arena of guilt,” and with this, you risk writing about things people find uncomfortable. I have always found this to be liberating, albeit terrifying. There is a lot of power in being able to own your guilt, to write it down.

It wasn’t until middle school that I discovered a real love for reading poems as well. I remember very vividly going to the library with my mom, walking her over to the poetry section and asking her where I should start. She pulled a book of poems by Sylvia Plath off the shelf and I immediately fell in love. It’s funny looking back at that moment, as my mother is certainly not a poet, nor a reader of poetry; in fact, no one in my family is and I often wonder how I became so dedicated to the form. My parents are both avid readers, however, and I grew up seeing both of them read so often—my dad would give me crime novels to read and my mom took me with her to the library almost every weekend where I could pick out as many books as I wanted. This is likely where my interest in literacy comes from and I try to emulate this love for books and reading for my children as well.

As far as research goes, that love really began in high school. I was on my school’s science research team, which meant I was able to design my own original research study and work with a mentor to conduct it in real life. I chose to work with adult patients with schizophrenia, teaching them how to play chess to see if it could improve their symptoms. During this time, my weekly trips to the library with my mom saw me seeking out any and every book I could find written by someone with schizophrenia about their experiences, such as The Day the Voices Stopped by Ken Steele and The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller. I became very much immersed in not only psychology and research, but also in the real life stories of those impacted by mental illness. When I wasn’t reading about it, I was at the hospital speaking with patients and listening to their stories. I learned how that combination can be incredibly powerful—experiencing it as a reader and as a witness. If I’m being honest, it was pretty heavy and was a lot for my sixteen-year-old self to carry at the time. But looking back at it now, I have come to realize that my observations of others’ traumas started long before I entered the classroom as a teacher. I see that my research as a teenager served as a primer for my creative work and my future research on poetry as transformative.  

It’s exciting to be able to combine my two loves: research and creative writing, that I didn’t have to choose one or the other or compromise in some way. I hope my students see this and know they, too, can be creative and also engage with research and science. These things do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.

In the effort to shed poetry’s reputation as a lofty, unaccessible art form, how can people embrace literature and rediscover their voices after being called “bad writers’”? Without these metrics, what goals could students and teachers set in literary education?

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard students tell me they are bad writers! It breaks my heart every time. With my adult students especially, I would hear that they were told by their English teachers growing up that they couldn’t write, or they were given a failing grade on an essay and it crushed them. In my classroom, I try to limit this kind of negative self-talk—we are not bad writers, our ideas are not “wrong” or “dumb.” This is why I find teaching poetry so incredibly thrilling when we read a poem together, we are each going to experience that poem differently. Our different readings and interpretations are not “right” or “wrong;” I don’t think that dichotomy exists in poetry. It is an art form just like any other, which means that the experience of the reader (or viewer) is just as important as the construction of the piece itself. I welcome different readings and interpretations in my classroom. I encourage students to question themselves and each other about these differing views—why did the poem make you feel this way? Where in the poem did you experience a certain feeling and why? What do you notice the poem doing? And so on.

The definition of poetry has always been elusive and it is this elusiveness that often makes it intimidating to many students and even to some instructors. Poet and critic Edward Hirsch, when attempting to define poetry, called it “a verbal transaction” and one that “establishes a relationship between a writer and reader.” What I love about this definition is the idea of a relationship being built between poet and reader; it is a “temporary possession,” as Hirsch says. Thinking of poetry this way, I am reminded that it is an experience for both the writer and the reader. This experience, this possession, can be powerful and transformative, especially for those who are marginalized or oppressed, or who have experienced trauma.

Julian Barnes said, “Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry,” evoking the empiricism inherent in research as well. How has your doctoral work shaped your creative writing and vice versa?

What an excellent quote. This reminds me of the way I go about teaching students how to read a poem (and how I was taught in graduate school at the University of Oregon by the incredible poet and professor, Geri Doran). A poem should be viewed as a made object, as a thing that the poet constructs and pieces together. The process is careful and deliberate. Every word choice, line break, punctuation mark, is labored over and attended to with great precision. I hope this way of thinking about poetry helps students to let go of the fear and anxiety of reading a poem. It opens up the possibility of breaking it down into pieces and trying to make sense of it bit by bit.

I have always felt comfortable in my identity as a poet and writer. Those labels came naturally to me and I felt no shame or embarrassment to classify myself as such. However, it was not this way with my queer identity. I often kept that part of myself hidden, even from those closest to me. Yet when I am writing, when I am inside a poem, the need to keep my identities hidden does not exist. My doctoral work is concerned with these shifting identities and how specifically the creative writing workshop can be a space where queer identity and writer identity can come together.

As you find ways to help students foster a love of writing, what new directions will your poetry research explore?

I am currently working on my dissertation proposal and will be researching how an out-of-school poetry workshop can help LGBTQ+ undergraduate students understand their queer identities and feel empowered. I especially want to see how writing and reading together in a queer workshop space can relieve some of the pressure to produce “good” writing or say all the right things. Essentially, I hope to see how identity-based writing groups can be a way to navigate, develop and understand our identities (both queer and writer identities) better and learn to express those identities through writing.