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Is there a link between mental illness and poetry, more so than other arts?

Blog Posted:5/26/2016 11:59:00 AM

Poets write for many reasons. However, historically poetry has been closely associated with mental illness. It is often thought of as a therapeutic way to address personal issues? Many famous poets have committed suicide. In your opinion, and from what you have observed, is there a link between mental illness and poetry, more so than other arts?

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Michelle
James

Date: 7/25/2016 5:41:00 PM

As a unique person, I like to call myself I suffer from mental illnesses. Severe depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. Poetry has been my recent outlet for the past two years. Poetry tells you how you actually feel. For instance last year when I suicidal, the poetry I wrote was shocking to me. I haven't written like that since, but I read them now and then. It is surprising to me how dark of a place I was in, the horror in my words, some of my work even being insidious. So I do think poetry can be linked with mental illness. They both show the emotions within.

Andrew
Crisci

Date: 6/7/2016 11:58:00 AM

If I have made to this age...it's because I have kept off drugs and other harmful things while my friends had fun doing drugs, drinking and getting sick. My faith in God and clean living, not poetry has made of me of what I am today. Poetry is a gift from the spirit of God. He wants us to use it wisely and abundantly. It cleanses the soul of harmful elements. We don't need drugs that harm our bodies, and in most cases, they don't cure but kill. Feel sympathy for those poets who escape to poetry to lift the weight of depression and illness. Faith can heal, drugs can't. My therapist is God with His infallible word. Go back to Him, He's the cure.

Lenny
Gazbowski

Date: 5/28/2016 1:36:00 PM

Poetry can be therapeutic, and better than taking anti-depressant meds :-) It helps to cleanse the soul when necessary but this applies to all art forms.

Lenny Gazbowski
Date: 5/28/2016 1:49:00 PM

On another poetry site I read plenty of self harming or suicide poems, and most written by poets under 21. I have been in the same place as the poets who wrote about suicide. I have never been a self harmer -never entered my mind ! Looks like we all need our own personal therapist ! ;-)

Cyndi
Macmillan

Date: 5/27/2016 7:18:00 PM

Good night Soupers. Good night TPS. I hope to see TPS blog a topic which is more about poetry, its tropes, its masters, poet laureates... so many juicy subjects which could be less provocative. I'm not sure what you were expecting with this particular subject; I'm guessing not this... I'm not misbehaving NOW... I'm making a suggestion, an earnest one. Please, a redo? Another blog, next week? Something about poetry, not "our observations" and the stigma that those who face the reality of mental illness must endure. Thank you.

Becca
Teagan

Date: 5/27/2016 11:39:00 AM

I can't believe Craig is gone :( I hope he's as insane as the rest of us and comes back.

Tom
Quigley

Date: 5/27/2016 9:35:00 AM

Not sure I have much original to add to what's already been said, particularly by Robert and TJ, but I think that even "healthy" people have unconscious material that can leak through a muse/filter and come out as some form of art. If that makes sense... Read Thomas Szasz for my thoughts on "Mental Illness" as a social phenomenon---it is used far more as a tool of norming than a means to help people to freedom from their own chains.

Robert Lindley
Date: 5/27/2016 11:08:00 PM

Right you are Tom.. They should have seen me once long ago when I went about 15 months not writing even a single poem. I couldnt even tie my own shoes without getting angry. I started back writing and in about thrée weeks was back to my normal-crazy-- self. lol Writing releases the pressure, especially my darker writes .

Carl
Fraser

Date: 5/26/2016 10:59:00 PM

Hey, i resemble thar remark. Yes poetry has been self therapy for me since my youth when under abuse and no one would listen, pen and page were there for me. I think if i never did it then i would have been a train wreck. I think poetry can save you from mental illness because theres a release there. And it saved me thousands of dollars in shrink fees . Blessings one and all, Carl

Robert
Lindley

Date: 5/26/2016 8:51:00 PM

You do not have to be mentally ill to write poetry but it helps.. My muse tells me that often and she is crazy and vicious both. I write because I must--if that is crazy then count me in.... To me, any true poet is step above......

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/27/2016 9:43:00 AM

Sorry, Robert... for Debbie.

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/27/2016 9:39:00 AM

I feel sick. I think I caught Soupitis. Sis? Maybe you're Go Cyndi should be the other way around... Cyndi... go! I'm reading and hearing so much stomach-turning crap, people so wrapped up in themselves that they are like the Stedford Wives. Why are we here again, Sis...please, remind me? We were them, once. It's like being an ex-smoker, I guess...

Debbie
Guzzi

Date: 5/26/2016 8:29:00 PM

Go Cyndi!

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/27/2016 9:43:00 AM

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/26/2016 9:37:00 PM

I will say that some of the most lovely, delightful, wise and KINDRED people who I have been blessed to meet, have spent time on Soup and then left. I am forbidden to mention names, even though I speak well of them. But we know who they are... look around... who is missing?

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/26/2016 9:30:00 PM

Ah, already done. Okay.

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/26/2016 8:34:00 PM

I'm going to get to your story, now. But I had to say something. SHEESH... how long was she here, calming the frays, soothing tempers? How many times did she stop things from escalating and she gets WHAT??? Not cool!

Andrea
Dietrich

Date: 5/26/2016 8:04:00 PM

I'm very stable and about as sane as they come. Bummer. I think I am not a real poet.

Tom Quigley
Date: 5/27/2016 10:22:00 AM

Ever written about that?

Andrea Dietrich
Date: 5/26/2016 11:48:00 PM

haha.

Skat
A

Date: 5/26/2016 8:03:00 PM

I knew something was not right when I stopped writing. LOL, **ynr-SKAT**

Constance La France
Date: 5/27/2016 8:50:00 AM

Keith you are so funny, I love your attitude

Lewis
Raynes

Date: 5/26/2016 6:25:00 PM

Absolutely agree, over the past few years my life has been ripped apart and my escape has been both painting and poetry. I find poetry allows me to really "think" critically about my feelings about specific events and to compose these thoughts into short, concise, truthful writes. Most of the writes I do are me unloading my past issues. My paintings are about expressing my desires for the future. They are both my meditation to cope with inner turmoil.

Harry
Horsman

Date: 5/26/2016 5:35:00 PM

Yes poetry soup the link is the pen in my hand...

Anthony
Mark

Date: 5/26/2016 5:12:00 PM

I'm a bit odd, in that I can feel the pain of others just by them talking to me...I don't mean pretend pain, I mean the full gambit of emotions, ...it sometimes frightens me when I realise I have just written a load of stuff, ....about them.....

Robert
Stoner Jr

Date: 5/26/2016 3:41:00 PM

Well aside from military service which has a 50% higher rate of suicide than non service populations, the figure 22 a day is offered. Poets certainly have an abundance of opportunities to suffer from stress and anxiety in my opinion. The roller coaster of success and failure of offered heartfelt outpourings can absorbed to the core of self. How many times can one be cast aside or ridiculed without personal worth issues.

Becca Teagan
Date: 5/27/2016 8:11:00 PM

I agree, Robert.

Robert Stoner Jr
Date: 5/27/2016 3:28:00 PM

Sounds like troubled spirits are drawn to poetry not poets drawn to troubled spirit. The examples of suicidal poets all had depression or bi polar histories from youth. If there are issues of mental health throughout life these issues should be addressed, possibly poetry ,like counseling can help the spirit. I don't believe donning a poets cloak inspires madness.

Becca Teagan
Date: 5/26/2016 9:19:00 PM

Wow, Robert, this is interesting ... and a little disconcerting.

Robert Stoner Jr
Date: 5/26/2016 3:41:00 PM

I read: It's a relatively new theory in the world of psychology – in 2001, James Kaufman conducted a study that showed creative writers, especially female poets, are more susceptible to mental illness than other types of professions. Kaufman and psychologist John Baer, PhD, of Rider University, theorize in the Review of General Psychology (Vol. 6, No. 3) that creative people--specifically, eminent female poets--may be more prone to mental illness if they are more vulnerable to extrinsic motivational constraints, such as interpersonal relationships. Valuing such external factors may harm poets' mental health, they speculate, because high levels of creativity require people to "defy the crowd" and ignore what other people think. That means eminent writing could produce more stress--leading to a higher incidence of mental illness. We sit on a case of dynamite with a lit match it seems.

Constance
La France

Date: 5/26/2016 2:50:00 PM

TPS, I think there is a lot of truth to that statement, for me during tragic events in my life, I have turned to poetry to write the pain, I do not think I am mentally ill, but probably say things in poetry I would not say in real life, poetry allows us to bare our souls...well some poets of old were outcasts from society and I would include art in the mix some artists were rather strange... and their art reflects that, Constance

Constance La France
Date: 5/27/2016 8:54:00 AM

I will never leave you poetry soup until I am so old I can no longer write or have gone to heaven, no matter how many mentally ill poets join or maybe just weirdos, no matter who leaves. I will rise above it all and just write my poetry.

Brian
Strand

Date: 5/26/2016 1:47:00 PM

Interesting point PS ,(and coincidence) Cowper (see my blog below) had a two year period of insanity before regaining normality when becoming an evangelical.The quote in my blog by Cowper has some relevance to your question.rgds Brian

Rob
Carmack

Date: 5/26/2016 1:45:00 PM

Mood and Personality Disorders definitely, but not sure if it is more so in Poetry than other arts.

Eve
Roper

Date: 5/26/2016 1:35:00 PM

you do have a point I assume a majority do have an issue with their emotions so they write to empty the vessel of pain but it is like alcohol it is just a bandage . For myself I believe like Frederic and artist to capture life and to mold it.

Frederic
Parker

Date: 5/26/2016 12:52:00 PM

no it's just artist see the world in color instead of black and white...most people see a bird an artist sees a life form and all the beauty and sadness that surrounds the complexity of its simple life...not mental illness rather more in tune with the observation of what is.. the search to explain with words or paint or stone what is seen or felt through a human perspective...a need to express, to give color to understanding...to take the chaos of the world and shape it in terms that make sense to those that only see in black and white

Justin Bordner
Date: 5/26/2016 4:50:00 PM

A truly brilliant statement Frederic...your soul knows a wide spectrum of natural poetry...I am eager to read your crown sonnet...J.A.B.

Laura Leiser
Date: 5/26/2016 3:12:00 PM

Great answer, Frederic! A unique perspective, along with great emotions expressed in words, are what poetry is all about...!

Joyce Johnson
Date: 5/26/2016 1:53:00 PM

I like your answer. Thanks. Joyce

Cyndi
Macmillan

Date: 5/26/2016 12:16:00 PM

The creative may be more susceptible.Even when it comes to applied science, where is a certain degree of creativity comes into play... like the genius, John Nash, subject to the movie A Beautiful Mind. I think all creativity stems from a kind of mild madness... whether you be a fashion designer or a web designer... so no, I do not see poets being any more prone to mental illness than say a visual artist.There are tens of thousands of well known poets who did not "commit" suicide. I say this as someone who has buried a loved one who suicided --we no longer say committed because it is focusing on the death as a crime and not what it is-- a loss of life. Suicide is everywhere. Nobody is immune. Wives and husbands, siblings, friends, lovers, even our children who we think we know so very well... all can take their own lives in moments of deep despair. We all have our breaking points, even those who say, "I'd never," may come across a situation so painful, yes, they will. In Canada, we have now legalized suicide if the person is an adult who is facing a painful death due to an incurable illness. I'm not sure how many of these slow dying patients are poets... probably not many...

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/26/2016 8:45:00 PM

I wonder if the unusual requests were to reinstate barred members due to worry of a suicide attempt and that Soup was the only real "lifeline?" Nope. Change my mind. I can't see that as being the request, AT ALL.

Team Poetrysoup
Date: 5/26/2016 12:30:00 PM

We do not mean to imply anything, we've just had some unusual requests within the past 2 weeks related to this subject.

Cyndi Macmillan
Date: 5/26/2016 12:25:00 PM

PS- this is an odd blog for THIS day.

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