Reconnecting with Poetry

RIP dear hospice patient Ben. Thx 4 reconnecting me 2 poetry, discussions about emotional risk + sharing ur last few months on this glor ...
This was a message to me on facebook from Catherine.

We turn to poetry in time of need. We turn to poets, who make a journey for us, distill it, and send it back to us. "Good poetry is disturbing." Poets can interpret our feelings for us, often using metaphor, and comparing two objects which are really not similar. I love the language of poetry.

There is a fair amount of poetry, and a good deal of great art, mythology, and classical music (including opera) in my EQ Course. Time and time again I have seen people turn to great art for relief in time of pain and crisis. It connects those things that are universal.

When I was taking a training course with a hospital chaplain, he said to me, "When this generation [now 30] reaches middle age, we are going to see despair such as we have never seen before. Why? Because they do not have a foundation in the fine arts." I invite you to explore art and culture!

POETRY
I write poetry. I have written poetry to define, refine and distill my feelings during tragedy and hard time. I have written poems of joy as well. When you think of it, most people in love write poetry! It doesn't take any special requirements. You don't have to have a college degree, or even to have finished high school. It isn't about intellect.

In fact one of the most touching poems I've read was sent to me by a man whose son had died at the age of 20. The man sent me a poem he had written. Here is part of it:

We sat down at the table to eat but we couldn't get it down
Because the one whos supposed to be at the table ain't.

I bow my head to this man.

MUSIC
I have a friend who is a lawyer. The lawyer who trained her, for whom she worked for 15 years, had died and she was devastated, but she told me she "couldn't even cry.". She told me she couldn't get any relief from the grief and didn't know what to do. She finally went to a therapist and he told her to listen to "Time to Say Goodbye," which Andrea Bocelli sings - with many people, in many different languages. The therapist told her to listen to it in a language she didn't know, that she would still benefit from it. In other words, listen to "Con Te Partiro."

Art and music, story-telling, dance, they all go to the right brain, without interference from the "tyranical" left brain.

The story of "Time to Say Goodbye" is an incredible one. You can read it about it on my Vivo Per Lei (I Live for Music) website.



For more about the healing benefits of music, see Club Vivo Per Lei. I'd love to have you join.