I find reading poetry very helpful

[Sphinxi]

I recently discovered a short article by a philosopher that I like, richard rorty, on the importance of poetry. In it he discusses his diagnosis with cancer, how religion and philosophy (he was a titan in american philosophy in his day) provided little use to his situation. When his family asked "Hasn't anything you've read been of any use?", he replies "'Yes,' I found myself blurting out, 'poetry'."

He concludes the article with:

I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends. Cultures with richer vocabularies are more fully human — farther removed from the beasts — than those with poorer ones; individual men and women are more fully human when their memories are amply stocked with verses.

The article if interested: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/68949/the-fire-of-life

Anyway, I found that this resonated with me. I don't read as much poetry as I should, but I find it very helpful, it seems to capture emotions more clearly than any other verbal medium. This is no accident, as language necessarily corrodes our thoughts. I often feel as though I cannot quite articulate how I feel, that my own mental state is exclusive to me, and cannot be communicated. Words seem to fall short, this is why people often say that they feel an emotion "beyond words". However poetry is the furthest removed form of verbal expression from words, it plays with them in a way that more closely captures how I feel. It gives me comfort that prose often can't.

Here are a two poems that helped me regarding suicidality and related emotions:

I never hear that one is dead
Without the chance of Life
Afresh annihilating me
That mightiest Belief,

Too mighty for the Daily mind
That tilling it's abyss,
Had Madness, had it once or, Twice
The yawning Consciousness,

Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue
When Terror were it told
In any Tone commensurate
Would strike us instant Dead -

I do not know the man so bold
He dare in lonely Place
That awful stranger - Consciousness
Deliberately face -

I never hear that one is dead (1325)

I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling it’s…

www.poetryfoundation.org

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Dust of Snow

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

www.poetryfoundation.org

If anybody has any poems that they like please share them, I would be interested to read.