the therapeutic value of poetry

'I have a growing sense that through the long years of rehabilitation, it has been Jayne's poetry, her thoughts and words, which have revived and sustained us, reminding  us of her talents and skills, her promise, her capacity for humour and irony, her never-give-up attitude. No amount of ranging of limbs or other standard rehabilitation practices has come anywhere as near to bringing the new and the old Jayne together as her poetry has.'

Helen Sage, 2013, A flower between the cracks: A memoir of love, hope and disability, Affirm Press, South Melbourne.

Poetry, politics and happiness

'Poetry has a political past. It is not just that the most subversive voices going back to the Roman poet Ovid, have been writers of verse. It is that, as Confucius said, the most important act of a ruler is clarifying words. 
     Confucious, like Aristotle, wanted to put his ideas for a better society into action by advising a king. He never got to do it, but when asked what his first decree would be should he ever gain influence, he declared: "Get the language right." Unless we know what we mean, we have no chance of forging happiness, he explained.

...

... the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong ... best known for declaring that "power comes out of the barrel of a gun". But he was also a poet and launched the Cultural Revolution which killed 20 million people, because he was attacked with words, not bullets. When a playwright parodied him in the 1960s, Mao knew the game was up, and so unleashed his murderous Red Guards. This is a long way from Aristotle, who believed that politics was not just an ethical business, but the highest form of philosophy.'

Peter Ellingsen, The Age, Melbourne.

Ezra Pound 'A Retrospect'

'When Shakespeare talks of the "Dawn in russet mantle clad" he presents something which the painter does not present. There is in this line of his nothing that one can call description; he presents.

 

Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap.

 

The scientist does not expect to be acclaimed as a great scientist until he has

discovered something. He begins by learning

what has been discovered already. He goes from that point onward. He does not bank on being a charming fellow personally. He does

not expect his friends to applaud the results of his freshman classwork. Freshmen in poetry are unfortunately not confined to a definite and recognizable class room. They are "all over the shop". Is it any wonder "the public is indifferent to poetry?"

 

Don't chop your stuff into separate iambs.

Don't make each line stop dead at the end, and then begin every next line with a heave.

Let the beginning of the next line catch the rise of the rhythm wave, unless you want a definite longish pause.

 

In short, behave as a musician, a good musician, when dealing with that phase of your art which has exact parallels in music. The same laws govern, and you are bound by no others.'

 

http://newpaltzcomposition.pbworks.com/f/Pound,+A+Retrospect.pdf             

"Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

Abou Ben Adhem

By Leigh Hunt

 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:—

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

         The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt : The Poetry Foundation