of fragmentation, to a greater sense of wholeness. I believe this dialogue provided Jefferson a bit of “distance” from his struggle, hence allowing him greater control.
Several decades later, another US President engaged in poetic language, which was, in all likelihood, a way for him to express and distance himself from personal trauma. Here are the final three stanzas from his nine-stanza poem, “The Suicide’s Soliloquy,” identified by historian Richard L. Miller (Shenk J. 2004):
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! Come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
This poem was first published in the August 25, 1838, Sangamon Journal, by a twenty-nine year-old Abraham Lincoln. Scholars agree that Lincoln suffered bouts of serious depression, twice talking about suicide to his friends. Compared to today’s standards, the poem is over-wrought, but that was the style back then. Nonetheless, its imagery and metaphor are starkly effective.
Imagery and metaphor have long been staples of writing for purposes of healing. They work because our minds themselves are metaphoric. We use such a poetic language as another “window” for describing problems and finding solutions. Poetic language, especially metaphor, can transfer meaning from one experience or concept to that of another. Casting our thoughts in imagery, metaphor, or imagined dialogue, as Jefferson did, can loosen or remove the issue that is tied to us.
One way that poetic language accomplishes this is by its interactive quality: Its ambiguity often suggests more than one possible meaning, so it forces us to think, to consider more than one alternative. When we see options (as readers and as writers), then we are invited to think independently. The specificity of poetic language largely bypasses linear, logical thinking. This concreteness also helps us bypass resistance, if we have experienced the same message in generic terms. Therefore, (and to conjecture for a moment) Lincoln may have directly told himself that suicide was wrong; his friends may have explicitly told him it was wrong, or may have even commanded him not to think about it or do it. Let’s assume that merely telling him does not work, nor would telling him again be effective. This is the point where the indirectness of poetic language may be most effective; Lincoln implies, but doesn’t say, he would commit suicide.
Nearly a hundred years after Lincoln, another US President, Harry S. Truman, engaged in extensive writing that he called “longhand spasms” (McCullough 1993). When facing complex issues and vexing problems, Truman would often check in, alone, to Kansas City’s Hotel Muelbach, where he would write his way out of the problem. Following is an example of such writing from early in Truman’s career, when he served as a Jackson County Judge (now referred to as a “County Commissioner”).
This sweet associate of mine, my friend, who was supposed to back me, had already made a deal with a former crooked contractor, a friend of the Boss’s . . . I had to compromise in order to get the voted road system voted out . . . I had to let a former saloonkeeper and murderer, a friend of the Boss’s, steal about $10,000 from the general revenues of the county to satisfy my ideal associate and keep the crooks from getting a million or more out of the bond issue. Was I right or did I commit a felony? I don’t know. . . . I’ve got the $6,500,000 worth of roads on the Ground and at a figure that makes the crooks tear their hair. The hospital is up at less cost than any similar institution in spite of my drunken brother-in-law, whom I had to employ on the job to keep peace in the family. I’ve had to run the hospital job myself and pay him for it. . . . Am I an administrator or not? Or am I just a crook to compromise in order to get the job done? You judge it, I can’t. (McCullough 1993, 499)
While Truman’s language here is far less poetic than Jefferson’s or Lincoln’s, I admire it more than theirs. First, Truman was a plainspoken man, with more than a trace of a now-disappearing rural Missouri accent. These facts led many people to dismiss Truman as a “hick,” similar to the way Lyndon Johnson was often perceived, due to his Texas drawl. This is far from true for both men. Truman was more literate and cultured than most of his peers; he just never took pains to show this side of himself. He constantly read history and loved Shakespeare. He was an intense student of classical music, who wanted to be a concert pianist. When traveling, Truman took his own record player and LPs, or long-play albums, of classical music with him. The second reason that I admire Truman’s habit of writing through trauma is that he chose to write in common, everyday language—expressive language. It’s not pretty or stuffy or preachy. It’s direct and honest. It doesn’t hold back.
Expressive language is the “matrix” from which all other forms of language are born—from academic and scientific reports to business contracts and poems (e.g., Britton 1975, 11–18). The main reason is this: Before you can write in language that is manipulated and cast in specific ways for a specific audience (e.g., a lab report aimed at molecular biologists), you have to be able to explain it first to yourself or to a close, trusted friend (explaining specialized vocabulary when needed). If you can’t clearly explain it to yourself, then you’ll have a helluva hard time explaining it to a specialized reader. In short, expressive language is the kind in which we think. Its uncensored, trusting, and informal qualities are what make it malleable, flexible. This, in turn, allows us to generate more and different thinking.
Expressive language and writing about trauma share many characteristics, which you’ll find in this excerpt from Truman’s writing. For example, he begins with concrete, observable details, sticking close to his reality (“6,500,000 worth of roads”). While he emphasizes the personal, he keeps the larger context in his view (accomplishing projects for the public good). Truman also connects feelings to specific events, as a kind of evidence, and he connects one incident to another. He asks questions of himself and twice expresses frustration at not answering them directly, though here he suggests his answer merely by posing the question.
He later answers an implied question by explaining why he had to hire his inept brother-in-law. Truman is also flexible with time, including observations of the past and present; he also implies his concern for the future, in his satisfaction with the new roads and hospital. Truman describes some tension by including positive and negative observations and events. He also uses ironic, direct, and colorful names for people (“sweet associate”; “crooks”; and “saloonkeeper and murderer”); he uses fragments or incomplete sentences, contractions, lists, and the first-person pronoun “I” and second–person pronoun “you” for addressing the reader. All of these are common characteristics of expressive language and writing about trauma.
As far as I know, Truman never explained how or why he engaged in such writing. His label of “Longhand Spasms” suggests a certain dismissal of such writing. On the other hand, he must have believed in its value because he practiced it throughout his life. Historian David McCullough’s (1993, 499–500) description of one instance leaves little doubt about Truman’s purpose:
Truman had had all he could take. Alone at his desk upstairs at the White House, on a small, cheap ruled tablet of the kind schoolchildren use, he began to write. It was the draft of a speech, a speech that he had no intention of giving, but that he needed to get off his chest.
I
