Wow...WOW. This poem really knocks the idea of madness as a 'dangerous gift' out of the park! The power and potential of poetry to embody the human condition is implicit in the lines: "What's madness but nobility of soul, At odds with circumstance?" This poem does not set out to romanticize madness, but move away from pathologizing it as a disease of the mind and recognizing it (largely) as a reflection of a social condition. Madness does not exist in a vacuum. Trauma plays a huge part in stoking one feeling "at odds..."
Now THIS - love this. Reminds me of a line in Lila, Pirsig's follow-up to Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
"Ask, 'If there were only one person in the world, is there any way he could be insane?' Insanity always exists in relation to others. It is a social and intellectual deviation, not a biological deviation. The only test for insanity in a court of law or anywhere else is conformity to a cultural status quo. That is why the psychotic profession bears such resemblance to the old priesthoods. Both use physical restraint and abuse as ways of enforcing the status quo."
I notice that I wrote 'psychotic' instead of 'psychiatric,' in the second to last sentence. I'm going to leave the typo, since Freud would say this is a 'malapropism' that reflects my deeper belief about psychiatry in general.
"What I is I?" he asks. The existential question. The shadow or the light. I live between the heron and the wren, and those final two lines. Brilliant.
Wow...WOW. This poem really knocks the idea of madness as a 'dangerous gift' out of the park! The power and potential of poetry to embody the human condition is implicit in the lines: "What's madness but nobility of soul, At odds with circumstance?" This poem does not set out to romanticize madness, but move away from pathologizing it as a disease of the mind and recognizing it (largely) as a reflection of a social condition. Madness does not exist in a vacuum. Trauma plays a huge part in stoking one feeling "at odds..."
"What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance?"
Now THIS - love this. Reminds me of a line in Lila, Pirsig's follow-up to Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
"Ask, 'If there were only one person in the world, is there any way he could be insane?' Insanity always exists in relation to others. It is a social and intellectual deviation, not a biological deviation. The only test for insanity in a court of law or anywhere else is conformity to a cultural status quo. That is why the psychotic profession bears such resemblance to the old priesthoods. Both use physical restraint and abuse as ways of enforcing the status quo."
I notice that I wrote 'psychotic' instead of 'psychiatric,' in the second to last sentence. I'm going to leave the typo, since Freud would say this is a 'malapropism' that reflects my deeper belief about psychiatry in general.
Brilliant. For today. A piece of very serious music.
"What I is I?" he asks. The existential question. The shadow or the light. I live between the heron and the wren, and those final two lines. Brilliant.
"The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind." bang bang
It's a great piece of music. Each time you read it you hear even more.
Poetic outlaws, can I ask, what is the copyright on a subscription base where you publish other writers work? Love this page