Why is it so hard to write about happy things?

If your writing experience is anything like mine it feels nearly impossible to write about happy things, even if you are actually feeling happy! Whenever I sit down ready to craft potential topics flow through my fingerprints: that fight I had with my mom, a friend who passed away, my own doubts in a relationship, or on a much grander scale the weight of my own feeble mortality and my doubts and frustrations at being powerless to abate the destructions and horrors happening around me.

Rarely do I find myself crafting soliloquies and sonnets about how happy I am, but the world is full of happy occasions.

The spring weather has painted the world outside my window in a warm, welcoming glow, my family is in good health, and most of my days are laughter-filled. Yet, it happens to all of us. We feel most inclined to write in the wake of tragedy and heartbreak. My instinct to solely read and write poetry that comes from places of sadness and desperation, anger, and fear while not unique, has haunted me throughout my time as a poet, and if you will bear with me, I would like to offer a few explanations as to why we as poets struggle to write happy things, why it is okay that we do not, some inspiration if you are looking to write happier poems and some of my favorite happy poems.

Thus, without further ado, why do humans have such a fixation on suffering? Tune into any radio station or take a glance at a bestseller list and the content is filled to the brim with heartbreak. As an entity, we have a fixation, almost an obsession, with tragedy. Most of the media consumed do not have happy endings; just take a look at Hamlet, The Fault in Our Stars, or the 10-minute version of All Too Well by Taylor Swift. The explanation why is not as farfetched as one might expect.

What do you do when you feel happy?

No really - what do you do? Take a moment and think about it. I am laughing. I am with friends. My pen and paper are nowhere to be seen. I am so encompassed by the moment I can not imagine living outside of it.

All of this is to say that happy moments are easy to talk about and explain. In many ways, it does not demand a poem the way unhappy moments do. Happiness is easy to explain, even a child can capture it. “I saw a rainbow today, so I am happy.” “My friend gave me a hug today, so I am happy.” Sadness and anger are harder to diagnose. They need the tricky instruments of the pen to untangle all that it entails. Typically, no one steps out of a happy moment to write it down and poetically understand their emotions. They are too busy living it.

This does not need to be cause for concern! Some of the best poems and art pieces depict tragedy, and for many of us, those hard moments are what caused us to turn to poetry. I know for me, I started to write around the time that my grandmother passed away and I could not go visit her in her final moments because she lived too far away. I took comfort in reading other writers’ pandemic pieces to feel less alone in my own personal pain. Additionally, I took comfort in depicting my own. While writing, I find patterns and music to moments that I may not have noticed before.

Often, I cannot begin to heal until the hardships have been placed on paper.

Even if you are not a poet, journaling or writing down a few thoughts can bring a lot of comfort, and it does not mean that you are falling into temptation or the easy option when it seems like every poem is portraying darker and darker feelings. On the contrary, it takes its own type of strength to be vulnerable on the page and not try to find a positive spin on a situation.

Okay, fair enough, but these happy moments are worth celebrating and remembering too, and you are sick and tired of every poem becoming an elegy!

What can you do to start writing about happy things?

Well, you have come to the right place. The age-old writing advice is to write small when writing about sad events. You never write about the millions of people who died in the war, you write about the neglected child’s-sized Mary-Jane shoes and baby doll covered in dust, debris, and blood. This is the same with happy occasions. Write small!

No one is interested in the big house you now have and the fancy clothing showing the wealth and happiness that were denied to you as a child. Instead show that in the chocolate frosting spread all over your child’s face as she giggles, and you remember the year your parents could not even afford you a sixth birthday cake. Do not write about the sun that rises every day and illuminates the whole world. Instead, write about how when the sun hits a singular blade of grass it makes the most magnificent green, and it is Sunday morning and you do not have to work, so you can just watch that blade of grass dance all day and maybe that is what you will do, but maybe it will not be, you have all the time in the world.

My second piece of advice is as follows: show, do not tell.

This is to say, poems are most effective when they do not tell you what they are about, do not announce themselves as a happy poem, but rather guide the reader to that conclusion. This can be accomplished through literary devices like metaphor and simile, and also by depicting the physical aspects of the speaker rather than their thoughts. For example, “I feel like Monday morning pancakes, school was cancelled, snow is falling.” Not once did I write “I feel happy,” but from these lines it is obvious that the speaker is happy. Hopefully, this advice will be helpful to you, and happy writing!

Lastly as promised, a list of some of my favorite happy poems for your reading pleasure and inspiration.

• When I Tell My Husband I Miss the Sun, He Knows by Paige Lewis

• The Orange by Wendy Cope

• This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

• Theories About the Universe by Blythe Baird

ABOUT REBECCA RAUSH

Rebecca Raush (she/her) is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University pursuing an English major with minors in International and Global Studies and Creative Writing. With a deep passion for poetry, her current inspirations include Ocean Vuong, Mark Doty, and Blythe Baird. In her free time, she enjoys reading, running, and writing. Past accolades include winning the My Spoken Mark Spoken Word poetry competition through her university in 2020 and winning third prize in the Evelyn Hamilton poetry award through the Rutgers Writers House. This is her first time editing a poetry anthology with Wingless Dreamer.