Content warning: Discussion of trans trauma, trans suicide.
I have been blessed in my life to have encountered experts in the fields of artistic expression, and what that art means to us trans people in particular (for more of this type of analysis, please see the work of Tilly Bridges, or Doc Impossible). While no two trans experiences are the same, there are some commonalities such that certain works will scream to us. It shows that being trans affects how we view the world, how we perceive the world - a perception which affects how we interpret any artistic work. When a person doesn’t fit into the world in the same way a majority of people do, that will affect how their senses ultimately take in the world around them.
So, to that end… I wanted to talk about my most favorite and least favorite poem, because both of them have something to say about the trans experience.
This particular post exists because of a past conversation with work colleagues about poetry. Yes, business professors talk about poetry - at least, good business professors do. Both of these colleagues I was talking to had the same favorite poem - and it just so happens to be my least favorite poem.
When I say that it is my least favorite poem? I mean that I HATE the poem. This collection of words is an abomination. I would rather read a three-volume Soviet epic poem about a boy and his tractor than read this poem.
The poem in question that has earned my ire so? William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
— “Invictus”, by William Ernest Henley
Again, for my two work colleagues, this was their favorite poem, and they absolutely raved about it. A call to keep on going, despite pain, despite hardship, despite setback.
Now. I’m going to ask for those out there… can you guess why a trans person might hate the poem with the fury of a million suns?
Perhaps to counter, I need to give another poem, this one my personal favorite: Mary Oliver’s “The Journey”:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
— “The Journey”, by Mary Oliver.
On the surface, the two might appear to be very similar - keep on going forward, pushing against hardship, against adversity.
The difference, though, is the calling itself, and the reward.
“Invictus” gives no credence or concern to the impetus that drives the narrator forward. Maybe, like “The Journey”, it is that inner voice, that inner call driving the narrator forward. Maybe it’s an external push, such as pressures and expectations from society. But that drive is inconsequential to the narrator, and in fact is dismissed by the narrator. After all, you are the “master of your fate” and the “captain of your soul”. All that is important is to just keep going, regardless of direction, regardless of impetus, because we are supposedly in control of that impetus.
For a trans person, this is trauma.
For a trans person, this can kill.
Consider what it is like for someone driven by society to deny their existence, their very nature - a person whose soul is casting winds contrary to society’s expectations. We as trans people are asked by so much of society to deny this calling inside us, this desperate need to be ourselves. And, to try to please society, to please those around us, we do exactly that. We’re asked - in some cases demanded - to take the pain of dysphoria day after day until we are dead, effectively captaining our soul into oblivion.
Some of us try to out-die our dysphoria, being miserable every day of our lives.
Others of us decide that out-dying our dysphoria requires more immediate action.
For a trans person, “Invictus” isn’t about living. It demands survival without any concern for living. It speaks to a time in our lives when we were asked to sacrifice ourselves needlessly for the whims of a bigoted society.
Put simply, FUCK “Invictus”.
“The Journey”, by contrast, is explicitly about listening to the calling driving the narrator forward. Instead of asking us to go against the calling inside ourselves, it encourages us to follow it, explore it, despite what the world around us demands. It is no external pressure; it is a purely internal calling.
Like the narrator, One day, us trans people knew what we had to do, and began.
Further on in the poem, it speaks to the kinds of adversities that we face as trans people - pressures from outside, external pressures from society. Calls to obligation to others; opposition to the path to be taken, the loneliness and coldness of the journey.
But it is most definitely our journey. This is an internal calling. In other words, we are not fighting ourselves. We are discovering ourselves, traveling with our internal winds and currents, rather than against them.
And, ultimately, and gradually, the wonders of our existence unfold before us. We start to listen to the voice within ourselves; we become more in tune with our bodies, our lives - and we see just how much wonder, just how much beauty, there is in answering that inner call.
By listening to that call within, instead of the sacrifice demanded in “Invictus”, we save our own life - we discover our own life, and just how beautiful and majestic it is to live.
We are determined to save the only life we could save.
My message to you today: Take some time to read some good poetry - Mary Oliver’s poetry in general is breathtakingly beautiful. And try to listen to that voice inside, and discover just how amazing it can be to finally answer that call.