Hail Poetry!

Piffka: I have the greatest admiration for "cryers". At some time during my life, I don't remember where or when, I was told it was unseemly behavior to shed tears in public. It wasn't until I reached my thirties that I was able to cry aloud without apologizing. I think the handerchief collection is a good idea. Out the window with the Kleenex.

I believe that with men it is more complex. We are tought from an early age that 'real men' don't cry etc. I think there are very few men who don't 'learn' that injunction and internalize it.
The corollary of that idea is that crying is evidence of 'weakness'. So, many of us who are easily moved (myself included) must therefore resort to various strategems to conceal our tears.

I think that is one reason I love poetry so much --especially poetry that is sad, moving, poignant-- because it allows me, in my privacy and solitude, to cry.

Finally as a person and as a mental health professional I truly believe in the curative powers or therapeutic benefit of tears.

It's what I always think of when I read Auden's wonderful lines:

"...In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start..."

( W. H. Auden, 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats')

We were talking about that yesterday, that if you don't or cannot cry, the pain is internalized and grows. Our daughter cried when a beloved cat died, our son just couldn't... or at least not in front of us. Very sad, even five years later. (We are an emotional bunch!)

I'm glad to hear that crying is OK from a mental health standpoint, I've heard it both ways. Obviously, if you cry all the time... something may be dreadfully wrong.

Music particularly moves me to tears. Even the national anthem at baseball games. When I was getting ready to go to one of my sister's weddings, I played the traditional wedding march over and over in a vain attempt to anaesthetize myself since it would always make me start crying.

I don't think I've ever been with a man who was crying, that I didn't start too. One of my favorite TV shows has people frequently crying happy tears -- it is nice. That's the British show where they surprise someone with a garden makeover. Wonderful idea. Boohoo, wish it would happen in my yard.

Lovely snippet of that Auden, Jjorge.

Crying is a healing process that let's you encounter and get through things that are very meaningful to you. It is incredibly powerful medecine.

That's why women will always be stronger than men,
and more in touch with meaning.

Sexism cripples men, amputating entire sections of their being.





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'Course, that's just my opinion... :-)

While I'm not sure I can agree with such a global assertion, the ability to cry, and in general to express and acknowledge feelings, is a big advantage that most women have over men.

I'm not sure that it's specifically 'sexist' though, that men deny and avoid their feelings.

As long as we're on the subject of tears, I've always loved Thomas Moore's poem, "When 'midst the gay I meet", which is about

...well, I tried several ways of finishing that sentence, and they all sounded like psychobabble, so I'll just let the poem speak for itself.


When 'midst the gay I meet
That blessed smile of thine,
Though still on me it turns most sweet,
I scarce can call it mine:
But when to me alone
Your secret tears you show,
Oh! Then I feel those tears my own,
And claim them as they flow.
Then still with bright looks bless
The gay, the cold, the free;
Give smiles to those who love you less,
But keep your tears for me.

The snow on Jura's steep
Can smile with many a beam,
Yet still in chains of coldness sleep,
How bright soe'er it seem.
But when some deep-felt ray,
Whose touch is fire, appears,
Oh! Then the smile is warmed away,
And, melting, turns to tears.
Then still with bright looks bless
The gay, the cold, the free!
Give smiles to those who love you less,
But keep your tears for me.

--Thomas Moore

Bree: That is a lovely poem. And, just in case you might not have noticed, I posted an Elizabeth Spires poem from Wordling above.

beautiful, beautiful . . .

that poem is a keeper bree. It's going into my little archive of favorites.

Raggedy: that's a very powerful poem by Elizabeth Spires you posted. I'm pleased to have been the instrument of introducing you -- and, through you, us -- to her poetry.

And jjorge, just so you know, I'm off to London for a week in June, and high on my list of books to buy while I'm there are some volumes of Dennis O'Driscoll's poems.

Bree -- Fantastic.

That line is a tear-wrencher, right there. Happy to hear you're going to be in London. Hope you find all you're looking for... and more!

bree


How did you hear of Dennis O'Driscoll? I don't think I know him.


P.S. Have a great trip!

jjorge, I first heard of Dennis O'Driscoll when you posted a link to an article about him on Slate. I could have sworn you posted the link on this very thread, but now I can't seem to find it. Am I hallucinating, or are you getting forgetful (or perhaps a little of each)?

In any event, here's "the missing link" again, for anyone who's interested:

Slate.com article on Dennis O'Driscoll

Thanks for the link, Bree. Another poet to be added to my collection.

Your time will come
when it gets a minute,
refusing to be pinned down,
despatching you at a whim.

<sigh>

Have a wonderful time in London.

As Rae says, "Cool Beans!" Thanks for reposting the link. I remember it and these lines:



His poems provide a wonderfully fertile field of recognition, emotion and empathy. Talk about seizing the day...

oops!

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS


When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(Wendell Berry)

Nice, Jjorge. Very nice!

Piffka

I thought you in particular would like it.

Glad you did.

I did. I did! I liked it so much that I copied it and sent it to a friend.

here is a lovely poem by Seamus Heaney that I encountered recently:



Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, an d inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown, headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwat e r.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And find the heart unlatched and blow it open.
(Seamus Heaney)