Ellis Elliott

Writer’s Toolkit: 5 Techniques for Handling Emotional Intensity in Writing

Published on May 20, 2024May 24, 2024 by Ellis ElliottLeave a comment

By Ellis Elliot

As writers, we often draw from our own lives for inspiration, tapping into our memories and emotions. However, delving into difficult experiences or memories can be challenging. It’s important to use techniques, or “lifelines”, to navigate this process. For example, author Gillian Flynn separates herself from the intense emotions of her writing by enjoying her favorite Broadway show tunes for a few minutes after she finishes writing. Poet Ada Limón ensures she has a way out of the emotional intensity by reminding herself that writing is the outlet for her feelings.

“Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic.”

-Tennessee Williams

What does the “ladder out” look like? For me, the five techniques below are the rungs I use and find most helpful when the “going gets hard”:

Method to Shift from Interior to Exterior- when I feel myself spiraling, I will tell myself to notice: 5 things I can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste, OR NOTICE 3 things in the shape of a square, 3 things in the shape of a circle, and 3 things in the shape of a rectangle.(I thank my therapist for that one!)

Breath Work-Breath connects directly to the nervous system, hence, when our breath quickens with excitement/fear we can consciously slow it down to bring calm. There are a lot of different kinds of breath-work, but the method I use (because I can remember it) when on the high-dive is called “box breathing”. You simply inhale 4 counts, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4. More info here: https://www.calm.com/blog/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety

Form Constraints-Choose a form, any form. Maybe it’s a sonnet, or as simple as making a list. Maybe it’s a haiku, or in the form of dialogue. Having a form helps switch the brain away from emotionally charged subject matter, and over to the more linear, logical side. Like swim-lane ropes, it helps give our work specific direction when it feels like we’re dog-paddling to nowhere.

Movement and/or Music-Take a walk. Sit in your chair, reach your arms out and upward as you breathe in, bring them down as you exhale. Roll your shoulders. Try some chair yoga. Turn on the music. Take a dance break. The mind/body connection is a strong and proven one. Get out of your head and into your body. Discharge that pent-up emotional energy with movement. Your writing, and your body, will thank you.

Decline the Invitation-“Going there” in your writing is up to you. Trust the wisdom of your body. If something comes up you don’t want to address, you can absolutely say, “no, thank you”, and shut the door behind it.

Maybe think of the above as the hard-hat and knee-pads for certain aspects of the hard work of writing. Find comfort in knowing that many are sharing the journey with you. If you’re lucky enough to have writer friends, talk about it. Many of us circle and circle around our truths, but never get there. Suit up and see where it can take your writing.

Thank you for reading. For more about the author Ellis Elliot visit. And check out her book.

Bam, Crack, Klunk: Why Sound Matters in Poetry

Published on January 30, 2024February 1, 2024 by Ellis ElliottLeave a comment

“Bam!”, “Crrraack!”, “Klunk!” are just a few on the list of words used in the 1960’s TV show Batman, usually held within a colorful cartoon bubble. We immediately conjure what is trying to be conveyed, and part of that understanding is because of the sounds of these particular words. In any writing, the sounds of words can produce not only feelings, but physical effects on the body. In poetry specifically, sounds become even more important because words must be carefully chosen in order to “say the most with the least”. We must pay attention to the vowels, consonants, stresses, etc. in the words we choose dependent on the idea or tone we are trying to convey.

Take a look at the information about vowel and consonant sounds pictured above, courtesy of Cathy Smith Bowers, Queens University., (excuse my notes and shadow!)Then, look at these two examples below. Read them aloud and ask yourself if it feels like flow and glide, or stop and start? Is there an emotion or physical reaction you can sense as you read?

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his

riding.

-from The Windhover,by Gerard Manley Hopkins

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight.

–from We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

That was pretty easy, huh? Now, go to one of your favorite poems and see if you can see how the word choices the poet made regarding sound serve the tone, subject matter, and larger themes of the poem. Then, look at one of your own.

Sound is just one of the many devices poets use, and it is a powerful one. A poem that uses short lines with high-frequency vowel sounds will sound very different than one with long lines using low-frequency sounds. And remember, the importance comes from not just the reaction to the words in your ears, but also the subsequent emotion or felt reaction in the body, and there is music to be found in all of them.

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Ellis is author of the National Book Award nominee poetry collection Break in the Field published by Old Scratch Press.

New ways of seeing

Published on March 17, 2023March 18, 2023 by Ellis Elliott1 Comment

My name is Ellis Elliott and I am proud to be a part of the Old Scratch Poetry Collective. I recently read Ben Weakley’s first poetry collection, Heat + Pressure. Ben is an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not one normally drawn to books or movies about war, because it is much easier to keep something at a safe distance, to pretend it’s not there, if we do not engage with it. But poetry has a particular way of helping us see with new eyes, and this time the writer is bringing us along with him on patrol with his infantry, at home with his young son, watching the events of Jan. 6, and back to his childhood, when war meant a game to be played. This collection is visceral as well as lyrical, and will linger long after you’ve read the last poem.

Field Dressing

The silent doe stiffened in her bed of leaves,

where moments ago she fell, panting.

Her last breath rattled.

Life passed from nutbrown eyes

into damp January morning.

The snow wrapped us in a womb of silence.

My frost-tipped fingers gripped tight

around the stained handle of a buck-knife,

the curved edge trembling.

Warm against my back, my father’s hand.

Soft against my ear, my father’s voice—

Careful, son. Cut gently.

We eat what we kill.

We honor the animal.

We honor the dead who gave us life.

Boys like me are not made with words enough for this.

-Ben Weakley