Let the Poets Cry Themselves to Sleep

To say I've been in an emotional slump lately is the early understatement of the decade. I know that time will fix everything, but in the meantime this past couple of weeks has been far worse than I anticipated, for more reasons than I anticipated. This has forced me to pick up some new hobbies, since my old ones were doing nothing for me. Before all of this my two favorite things in the world were dreaming and reading novels. Well, dreaming is now a cruel joke, and reading has been a struggle (I've read about 30 pages in 2 weeks ).
In light of this struggle with novels I've switched to reading and writing poetry, because I thought it might be therapeutic in some way, and in a way I was right. There is something about getting your emotions down on paper in the efficient manner that only poetry allows that relieves some of those emotions, or at least makes them a little more understandable. In this way, poetry is a very personal form of literature. It typically comes from emotions that we don't quite understand, which often leads to varying interpretations.
In short, poetry can be beautiful and enlightening, but unfortunately I found that most of it kind of sucks. Of course this is my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that most problems in the poetry I've read comes from people who wrote or write poetry for the specific purpose of that poetry being published and read. I can not imagine a bunch of people reading my poetry! For me, poetry deals with subjects so personal that it is only meant for myself, or maybe one other person. When poetry is written for other people to understand it, it becomes too contrived and very inefficient because the subjects, emotions, and meanings tend to be spelled out far too often. Efficiency is important to me because connecting with a poem that you can interpret personally hits my heart faster, harder, and long lasting. Personal interpretation goes a long way to establish a real connection with poetry.
I'm not saying that poetry can't work for people for other reasons, because obviously it does, I'm only saying that it doesn't work that way for me. I do enjoy reading poetry from time to time, but I've found that writing it stirs a range of emotions that reading it rarely even touches. If someone ever were to write a poem specifically for me I imagine it could have a similar effect. In contrast, when poetry is written to be published it loses that personal and efficient touch, leaving a lot of empty words and empty meanings.
However, I did say most of it sucks, not all of it, and what doesn't suck is pretty amazing. Some poetry covers emotions that we go through so well that it can strike almost anyone that reads it. Also, some poetry conveys a message and image so beautiful that it becomes a testament of the human spirit. I want to leave you with one of those. This is a poem by W.B. Yeats that a friend of mine recently reminded me of (this friend is a pretty good poet himself). It's called "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Enjoy!



Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams