A favourite suicide poem

As the extended period of compulsory cheerfulness takes its toll on the emotional reserves, and the significant turning of the year prompts challenging self-reflection, pessimism often fights with optimism in our hearts..... and wrestles it to the ground, and gets it in a submission hold.

This is a time of year, alas, when black thoughts - blank thoughts - all too readily take hold. But it is strangely cathartic, rejuvenating, at such times, I find, to read a little gloomy poetry, a few suicide songs.

This is one of the very best.

The name of the author has never been published, but it was ostensibly written at some point back in the '60s by an American boy of 14 or 15 years old - who did actually commit suicide a year or two later. It first came to prominence when published in a feature on teenage suicide in 'Time' magazine in the early '70s, and was, I understand, for a while at least, quite widely taught in American schools.

I first came across it a few years later, in one of the early 'Christmas Cracker' commonplace collections compiled by John Julius Norwich (originally just made for distribution as seasonal gifts to his friends, he soon started to publish them in pamphlet form in slightly larger numbers [I think, to raise money for charity] - but still only a very limited distribution: my pal The Bookseller would occasionally be able to get hold of a copy for me. These days, a number of anthology volumes of these are available [although, strangely, the most recent one - the one I don't have yet - has disappeared from Amazon!] - and there is a lot of excellent stuff in them; highly recommended!).

Once, he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Chops'
Because that was the name of his dog
And that was what it was all about.
And his teacher gave him an 'A'
And a 'Gold Star';
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
And read it to all his aunts.

Later, he wrote another poem
And he called it 'Question Marked Innocence'
Because that was the name of his grief
And that was what it was all about.
And the Professor gave him an 'A'
And a strange and steady look;
And his mother didn't hang it on the kitchen door
Because he never showed it to her.

And once, at 3am, he tried another poem
And he called it absolutely nothing at all
Because that was what it was all about.
And he gave himself an 'A'
And a slash on each damp wrist;
And he hung it on the bathroom door
Because he couldn't reach the kitchen.

(There is a much longer version of this poem - interesting, but less focused - available online here.)