Where do you go when you’re not feeling well?  Sometimes you may go to the doctor or visit a health spa.  Other times you might just go to bed early and hope to feel better in the morning.

 

Poetry Spa offers a way of curing your ills and woes through the use of poetry.  The following recommendations are to help you take better care of yourself with poetry therapy to heal from deep within.

 

Loneliness

 

What poetry should you read when you’re lonely?  Instead of crying over the silly illusions of soap operas, look up some poems by William Wordsworth.  He tended to be quite cheerful and sunny in his poems.  He is optimistic about loneliness in the following poem, which hopefully brightens your lonely day.

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

 

Broken Heart

 

Most doctors won’t deal with this illness, but most poets can provide some relief.  Tennyson offers the most profound advice in the line, ‘tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”  If that doesn’t help, consider Edna St. Vincent Millay.  She offers a much more casual experience when she writes, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten.”  Thousands of poems deal with the broken heart.  You should have no trouble finding numerous cures.  Writing your own poetry may also be very helpful therapy.

 

Dying

 

Dylan Thomas wrote this powerful poem for his dying father.  This poem does not prevent dying, but will help you face the reality of death with courage.

 

Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

 

Old Age

 

Old age may not be avoidable, but it needn’t be feared.  Through poetry, we can gracefully accept aging.  Tennyson offers the most profound suggestion in his famous poem, “Ulysses,” which concludes:

 

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

 

Poetry Confusion

 

Students often experience this feeling, but most doctors are unskilled in curing it.  Luckily, Marianne Moore offers support to those suffering from the confusion of poetry.  Although she hates the fancy stuff  (fiddle) of poetry, she is very satisfied when she finds genuine, true meaning.  Here is the beginning of Poetry: 

 

I, too, dislike it:  there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,

one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.

 

 

Injustice

 

Our modern world is full of injustice, especially in big cities that pretend to be “developed.”  e.e. cummings deals with the injustice of the universe in his unique way by creating his own vocabulary and grammar:

 

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not.  Progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

 

The poem concludes:

 

We doctors know

a hopeless case if – listen:  there’s a hell

of a good universe next door; let’s go.

 

Does the disease of “progress” depress you?  Maybe it’s time to visit another universe.  At least, find a pleasant place away from the problems of the city where you can relax.

 

Unable to make a Decision

 

Most people follow the crowd when making decisions.  Maybe they don’t even know that society often determines which path they will choose.  For those facing a big decision, who truly want to decide for themselves, look at Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken:

 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference

 

 

 

 

 

Loss of Self Esteem

 

In a consumer society, personal value is often measured by what you can buy at the shopping mall.  Seeking the value of self by shopping, rather than within one’s self, can lead to a loss of self-esteem.  Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 offers interesting assistance. 

 

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

 

 

Read the complete sonnet to see how he finally accepts his problems and even refuses to exchange his situation with a king.