Relationshipsandlove.com
Cups of soup for the Heart
Do You Write Poetry?
Poetry is one of the most powerful ways to heal a broken heart.
But only if it is constructive.
Sadly, some of the most beautifully written poems are not at all constructive. They're destructive.
What is a destructive love poem? Well, consider
one by Gaius Valerius Catullus. Catullus, from his early 20s, was madly in
love with a woman who was not what he had hoped. Writing between 80 and 50
BC (he lived next door to Julius Caesar), Catullus is now regarded as Ancient
Rome's most brilliant poet.
Catullus wrote:
My women says she loves me
More than any man
If Jupiter himself should
Come down from the sky
She would prefer me
She says
But what a women says
To a man who loves her
Write it on the wind
Write it on running water
(Yes, he was good. So good that even now, 2000 years later, you can go to any major search engine and enter "Catullus" ...dozens of sites offering translations of his poetry will come up! But being good, nay enthralling, as a poet did NOT make Catullus good... at love.)
Within 48 hours of writing the verse above, Catullus died. Perhaps from the stress grief puts on your heart. (Today we know a broken heart is a form of grief. And grief can kill.) Or he may have taken his own life with poison (2,000 years ago they couldn't be sure of the cause of death).
Catullus's death shocked his friends and family, as he was only 30.
But, sadly, he brought some of it on himself. Catullus didn't handle love well. And that is an understatement. His consistently angry and distressed poems actually increased his pain.
Rather than working thru it, Catullus held on to his pain. This is certainly not to blame him. Young Catullus didn't know what he was doing to himself. (Sound familiar?)
He left behind a grieving father, mother...and hundreds of friends. (Catullus was widely loved.) Many of his friends said that Catullus's death was a terrible waste. But his father, likely a genius himself, told those friends: Catullus's death was not for nothing. Not if others learn from his mistake.
What was Catullus's mistake? Why did he give up on life? Part of it was writing so many destructive poems. And he finished it off with the one above. It's a despair poem. Unfortunately, he didn't just despair of loving Claudia. He wrote: "what a women says" - as though they are all the same. Leaving him no hope.
And what is a constructive love poem? Consider Emily Dickinson:
My life closed twice before its close
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Why is this constructive? Because she says,
"It yet remains to see." Today, we still don't know. Maybe there
was a third event. Maybe not. But Emily ...was wise enough to be there for
it! (And give others hope.) A tremendous piece of poetry, too, isn't
it! (Poetry doesn't have to be destructive to be powerful.)
Submit your own love verse. And tell us...would
you consider it constructive? Or destructive? If destructive, please
send another one soon! A constructive one! (Dr.
Neff will try to get back to every entry...And never with an unkind word...He
will hear your anger ...or despair)
If there is enough interest, we will start
a poetry page. Where your poems will be available - published in your name
- to help others with similar struggles. Submit below - and don't forget
to tell us 1) the year you wrote it, and 2) whether you think it is
constructive or destructive.
Feelings and Healings...Poetry from the heart.
Does Dr. Neff write? Yes. Enter "Neff" "Ron" at www.Poetry.Com