Speaking About the Unspeakable: Poetry as a way to bear witness to suffering

This collaborative essay is adapted from a conference presentation by poets Emilie Collyer and Miriam Wei Wei Lo. There are two anchoring texts under discussion: poems by Lo and Collyer that are in close conversation with each other (Collyer’s poem is about gendered violence, Lo’s is about domestic violence). Collyer and Lo explore the unique ways in which poetry, as a form of creative writing, can bear witness to suffering. They pay particular attention to the strategies available in poetry that make it possible to enter into the paradox of speaking about what is rendered unspeakable by trauma. Collyer focuses on the poetic line, double poetic voice, and the possibilities for use of space on the page. Lo focuses on the fragment, sequential constraint (like the numbered stanza), and figurative language. The writers draw on a range of theories that connect poetry to ways of bearing witness to human suffering: including poetic inquiry as social justice, poetry as a practice of sacred lament, and broader feminist approaches to writing.