Pain

Throughout a great deal of his poems, Gregory Orr explores and processes pain, particularly in relation to trauma. This stems from a horrific childhood incident in which Orr accidentally killed his brother while on a hunting trip. For Orr, poetry is a method of confronting the chaos and destruction of trauma. From there, he transforms his pain into something capable of creating order. The poem “I want to go back” is no exception. Without specifying the context, the speaker contends with his desires to return to a simpler time before experiencing pain. At the same time, the speaker realizes that idealizing the past will not grant him the salvation he desires. Instead, the speaker acknowledges the inevitability of pain and even suggests that a wound can be a source of sustenance.

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker still struggles to accept his suffering. He...