If your teen is wrestling with complicated emotions or having trouble expressing their feelings in a healthy way, poetry can help.
While it might not seem like poetry can make a difference, reading and writing poetry helps teens learn to express themselves through writing and communicate the feelings they are experiencing.
Poet Sarah Kay once wrote, “No, I don't think poems will save us. And yet, and yet…”
This sentiment can help parents understand how poetry can help their teens. While poetry isn’t an end-all-be-all magic cure to fix all of your teen’s problems, it offers teens a chance to put words to the emotions they are feeling, share their emotions without judgment, and process themes that are present in different types of poems.
Here are a few reasons why poetry is a useful tool for therapists to utilize when working with teens:
Poetry is a powerful literary art form
As the parent of a teenager, you are likely no stranger to experiencing complicated emotions. Since you were once a teenager yourself, you probably also know just how intense these complicated emotions can be.
When a teen’s feelings are too strong or complex to describe with a specific word like “anger,” or “disappointment,” or “shame,” poetry is a tool that uses figurative language and other literary elements to allow teens to fully capture the feelings they are trying to convey.
Sometimes only a strong metaphor can depict your teen’s true feelings. Instead of saying they are confused, for instance, they might note that they are a “maze with no entrance or exit.”
The powerful imagery that is evoked through figurative language will make it easier for teens to communicate the full extent of their emotions.
Poetry allows space for symbolism
Sometimes, even when your teen has the language to communicate how they are feeling, they are too embarrassed or afraid to share these feelings directly.
Poetry allows teens to use symbolism to share their emotions and experiences in a way that may feel safer and less vulnerable. This will make them more likely to write about their feelings and share their poetry with their parents and their therapist.
Some teens have a hard time when they have to verbally communicate with their therapist. Poetry offers a different form of communication that can help therapists recognize how their clients are feeling so they can provide treatment.
Poetry promotes self-awareness
Teens cannot write poems about their feelings if they aren’t able to stop and think about what feelings they may be experiencing.
If your teen sits down to write a poem, they will be spending time focused on the thoughts that are going through their mind and the emotions that are weighing on them.
Self-awareness is important for self-care and for growth. When your teen learns to recognize the emotions they encounter, they will be better able to combat negative emotions and utilize healthy coping strategies to help manage these feelings.
Poetry gives them the opportunity to actively seek out their emotions.
Poetry allows teens to vent
Feelings are like pressure within a volcano. If the pressure continues to build, eventually there will be an eruption.
Far too often, teens bottle up their feelings and refuse to deal with them until these feelings build and erupt into problem behaviors, outbursts, and other negative outcomes.
To prevent this from happening, it is important for teens to have a safe outlet to share and release their emotions.
Poetry is a great outlet for emotional expression because it allows teens to vent their emotions in a healthy manner. When your teen is frustrated, they can pour out their frustration and anger into a poem, allowing these feelings to start to dissipate.
Poetry deals with universal themes
Even when teens aren’t writing their own poetry, this art form can be helpful because it often deals with important and meaningful themes that many teens experience.
A teen that is struggling with grief may find comfort or guidance through reading poems in this subject area. A teen that is dealing with anger, depression, or loss may feel relieved to read poetry and know that other people deal with these same experiences, too.
While poetry doesn’t have all of the solutions to the problems your teen may be facing, and it should not be the only resource you use to help your teen, it is a useful tool that can help them cope with their big emotions and make meaningful progress.