In Terrence Hayes' "Lighthead" he focus on many aspects of sorrow and anguish.  He touches on where anguish comes from, where it goes and who it effects.  He discusses the effects that anguish have on the micro-level of the individual and the ramifications pain has on the macro-level of humanity.  The emotions of sorrow and anguish pack a gut wrenching punch of outstanding turmoil that can last a lifetime.  Science states that energy is neither destroyed nor created, only relocated.  That being said, the sentiments of sorrow and anguish must be placed somewhere.  Its final resting space can have a positive effect on the individual(s) or a negative end result. The outcome is manipulated by where and how one focus the emotional energy that is attached.  Terrance Hayes utilizes anguish and sorrow in his poetry as a common thread that at times, strings people together while other times is employed as a mean of oppression and destruction.  

     In Hayes’ poem “The Golden Shovel” a small boy is out with his father and witnesses a man striking his son;

“We watched him run to us looking wounded and thin.

He’d been caught lying or drinking his fathers gin. 

He’d been defending his Ma, trying to be  man.  We

Stood in the road, and my father talked about jazz,

how sometimes a tune is born out of outrage.  By June

the boy would be locked upstate.”

The boys father in this poem is trying to express to his son that beautiful things can come from terrible events.  A feeling is a feeling no matter what, that is absolute.  How the recipient of that feeling reacts is as diverse as the color spectrum.  Life is what you make of it and the individual is responsible for manipulating the situation to best serve their needs.  Leaning something from a negative situation can turn an unfavorable circumstance into a beneficial learning experience with just a flip of the switch.  The last sentence of the third stanza informs the reader of the fate of the struck boy which proves to be quite grim.  Directly after an uplifting anecdote speaking of transformation and beauty we are bombarded with a harsh reality and are made aware of the difficulties involved in squeezing sorrows into a sweet songs.  A situation that is teetering on the grey line that separates a beneficial experience from a detrimental one is manipulatable.

Through out the entire poem Hayes uses the word “we”.  In the first half of the poem “we” is a boy and his father.  In the second half of the poem those included in his “we” are not as well defined, but implied to be a group of people, a humanity. He goes on to describe the anguish a group of people experience and how they cope with their emotions.  

“While God licks his kin, we

Sing until our blood is jazz.

We swing from June to June

We sweat to keep from we-

eping.  Groomed on a die-

t of hunger, we end to soon.”

God created man in his own image so we are his kin.  His abusive licks are the sorrows that are inflicted upon us throughout our entire life while the songs we sing are a coping mechanism to help us get through the eternal monotony of the endless June to June.  Our world can be surrounded by anguish from all angles,  it is a human emotion that all of humanity experiences.  As inhabitants of our world, we are in this together.  We all have to deal with the grief, anguish,sorrow, joys and laughter that our world has to offer.  

In Hayes’ poem “Lighthead’s Guide to Addiction” he lists off habits and problems while offering cures to many of life’s idiosyncrasies.

“If you are addicted to sorrow, all my talk about loss is not loss to you.

No one knows why your father built a shed for his weapons.

Probably was some hellified form of addiction.

If you are addicted to weapons, please find the people who plan to burn 

the last black man alive at sunset for me, 

or try learning a little history”

The discussion of loss is therapeutic and must be dealt with.  Processing anguish is a painful and difficult procedure but is certainly necessary.  Knowing that other people share the same awful emotions is reassuring, knowing that you are not alone in your grief is comforting and encouraging.  The author’s father has built a shed for his weapons to deal with his emotional anguish, his weapons are his defense mechanisms and his shed is an arsenal with a short fuse.  His advice to weapons addiction is to education with history.  History is plagued with distress, subjugated by oppression and most likely to repeat itself.  The only way to combat the repetition of a dark past is to acknowledge it.  A learned historian has knowledge of the past and insight to the future.  

In “The Golden Shovel” the subjects of the poem are dealing with anguish and coping with it the best way they know how.  They take what they are given and make it work for them, they roll with the punches life throws. In “Lighthead’s Guide to Addiction” Hayes is offering advice and provides sanctuary from anguish and sorrow by means of knowledge, expression and confrontation.  

Sorrow and anguish are unavoidable facts of the past, present and future.  When in the line of fire, reaction time is key.  Know what you are facing and act accordingly.  Keep in mind the past and the future without forgetting about the present.