How To Write A Sad Poem That Makes People Cry?

Question

As a poet, I want to craft truly moving sad poems where the emotion resonates deeply, not just feels melodramatic or cliché. Where do you start?

Claudia Alvarez · Answer

Be true to yourself and explore the personal sadness you are experiencing via a very concrete and personal image. For instance, a broken toy on a rainy windowsill or an unsent text to someone whose number you recognize. Don’t explain or describe how you feel – let the history of the image speak volumes. I felt the ‘silent’ grief that my own scenes weren’t tapping into while reading scenes from ‘Save the Tears for Someone Who Cares’ and saw how the grief was not articulated via long monologues but rather through action. The hero packing a case while, in the background of the room, his own reflection is ignored as he stands in front of the closet mirror. This type of description is far more affecting than any written description of grief.

Addison · Answer

Yes, you read that right. A heart wrenching poem is NOT a bunch of sad words thrown together into some lame poem. Each moment in the poem must feel real to the reader. To help achieve this end, experience life for yourself and then later use those memories in your poem (whether fictional or true). Miss someone? Describe how the light falls on the empty chair at the dinner table. Describe the forgotten sweater left behind, and how it smells of the person who left. Such details help paint a picture and bring emotion to life.

There is also much to be said for contrasting happiness with pain. Write a beautifully joyful childhood memory, and show how it can never be brought back. And use rhyme and meter sparingly – no one is better at ruining a sadness-filled poem than to have written it in clumsy, forced rhyme. Let your poem’s structure grow organically from the words as they flow. Sometimes, the most powerful line of all will be the space left between words – silence that the reader can fill with their own sorrow.

Yara · Answer

Sad poems are best when they’re true, not performative. Avoid the obvious (tears fall like rain, etc.) and explore the deeply unhappy and awkward emotions of regret and enduring love for someone who has passed. Get specific and describe what that looks like such as a half finished letter to this person or an idle phone not getting any new calls from them.

Don’t tell them how to cry. Rupi Kaur has managed to create a sad poem in “Legacy” which is sparse yet powerful. The weight of the unspoken words crumples the reader. Saddest poems are often the ones that do not end in a resolution. They just stop. Like a conversation that you wish you could continue with the other person.

Zane · Answer

In order to destroy someone with a poem, it has to be specific. General sadness about how tough life is won’t cut it. Most people are broken by the minutest details of humanity. Hence the reason why ‘Fleabag’ destroys us so much and ‘BoJack Horseman’ does too, because it pinpoints those details of humanity so accurately. Grief isn’t just crying, it’s forgetting your dead mom’s voice. It’s laughing at a joke your dead mom would have found funny. Feeling guilty for having laughed at that joke.

Structurally, you want to avoid melodrama and go for understatement instead. The simplest line of your poem will often be the most powerful – instead of writing out a whole stanza to describe loneliness, for example, you could just say ‘the dog still waits by the door’. Also, pay attention to the rhythm and use short and clipped lines to get across the feeling of sobbing, and very long lines to get across a feeling of exhaustion. Read your poem out loud and if you start to cry then you’re doing it right.

Michelle Campbell · Answer

Transgression is powerful. A sad poem with something unpleasant, angry, petty in it is more real than purely noble and beautiful sadness. Saints experience that kind of sadness. Human beings experience complex and often contradictory feelings. Sadness with anger, relief, boredom – all these painful yet often dull feelings must be channeled into the poem. And by allowing them into it, we shatter an ideal and depict a flawed human being, which is precisely who we cry for.

Sahi315 · Answer

Sentimentality is to be avoided at all cost. Sentimentality is emotional manipulation that feels demanded, unearned or even cliche. Pathos is an earned effect brought about by precise and measured language. Pathos is a huge difference between someone sobbing uncontrollably (melodrama) and someone folding a piece of paper over and over again until it can’t be folded any more (utterly devastating). Trust the image to do the work for you and avoid using well-worn expressions for sentimentality like ‘a heart of gold’ or ‘drowning in tears’.

Darnette Marshall Brittingham · Answer

This is a very interesting question. To me, a poem that induces tears has to feel inevitable. As the poet, you’re leading the reader to a place and hopefully it’s a place that feels both unexpected and inevitable when you get there. So all of the imagery should suggest something to the reader and if you do it well it should suggest the endpoint of the poem even before you turn to that and yet you shouldn’t make it too obvious or it won’t have the same effect. The sadness has to be something that the reader discovers for themselves. That’s the most powerful kind of sadness.

Marieta Cerilo · Answer

TITLES: Don’t overlook them. The title of your poem can set up the poem and give important information or even be the first punch of emotion to the reader. A simple date, name or place can immediately connect to the rest of the poem and give it more personalized touch. On the other hand, it could be very ironic to a hopeful word or even neutral word that actually makes the rest of the poem even more powerful to read. The title of your poem is the first frame through which your poetry will be viewed; use it wisely to help guide readers into the emotional aura of your poetry.

Ericka · Answer

This relates to permission, too. A good sad poem gives permission for the reader to feel what they’re suppressing to feel. It shows that this feeling exists, has a shape, and can be held for a moment or two. A sad poem gives the reader a safe space to feel something difficult. The tears come from feeling given to cry, from feeling validated, and often this is due to the unflinching honesty of the speaker. A poem doesn’t have to manipulate to do this – in fact, it can simply witness, and invite the reader to witness too.

How To Write A Sad Poem That Makes People Cry?

9 Answers

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