Norman E. Rosenthal is a psychiatrist who believes poetry has the power to heal. Rosenthal selected 50 poems–many of them well-known–that can help readers deal with common problems of Life: loss, grieving, love, aging, anger, longing, and many more.
Whether or not you believe Rosenthal’s theory of the healing power of poetry, Rosenthal has assembled a wonderful group of poems that can just be read for pleasure. How many of these 50 poems do you know? Any favorites? GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION — 1
PART ONE: LIVING AND LOSING
CHAPTER ONE: Is There an Art to Losing? — 9
“One Art” by Elizabeth Biship
CHAPTER TWO: Can Love Transform You? — 15
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
CHAPTER THREE: The Heart versus the Mind — 22
“Pity me not because the light of day”. by Edna St. Vincent Millay
CHAPTER FOUR: Love in the Moment — 29
“Lullaby” by W. H. Auden
CHAPTER FIVE: When Love Fades — 36
“Failing and Flying” by Jack Gilbert
CHAPTER SIX: Getting Over a Breakup I: Acceptance — 43
“Why so pale and wan fond lover? by Sir John Suckling
CHAPTER SEVEN: Getting Over a Breakup II: Reclaiming Yourself — 48
“Love after Love” by Derek Walcott
CHAPTER EIGHT: Declaring Your Love — 55
“Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare
CHAPTER NINE: Consoled by Love — 63
“Sonnet 29: Whe, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” by William Shakespeare
CHAPTER TEN: In Praise of the Marriage of True Minds –71
“Sonnet 116: Le me not to the marriage of true minds” by William Shakespeare
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Loss of a Loved One — 77
“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone (Funeral Blues) by W. H. Auden
CHAPTER TWELVE: Will I Ever Feel Better? — 83
“Time Does Not bRing Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Love Remembered — 86
“When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Love After Death — 91
“Remember” by Christina Rossetti
PART TWO: THAT INWARD EYE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Transcendence in Nature –101
“Daffodils” by William Wordsworth
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Memory of Daffodils –109
“Miracle on St. David’s Day” by Gillian Clarke
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Transcendence in Body and Mind — 114
“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey (excerpt)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Power of Dark and Light — 119
“There’s a certain Slant of light” by Lily Dickinson
CHAPTER NINETEEN: In Praise of Diversity — 126
“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
CHAPTER TWENTY: A Plea to Save the Natural World — 131
“Inversnaid” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Importance of Being Needed — 136
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Choices We Make — 142
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Force of Longing — 148
“Sea Fever” by John Masefield
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Finding Hope in Nature — 154
“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy
PART THREE: THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The Power of Hope — 163
“Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Welcoming Your Emotions — 168
“The Guest House” by Jalaluddin Rumi (Translated by Coleman Barks)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: The Healing Power of Reconciliation — 175
“Out beyond Ideas” by Jalaluddin Rumi (Translated by Coleman Barks)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Leaving Home — 180
“Traveler, there is no road” by Antonio Machado (Translated by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: And Those You Leave Behind — 184
“Letter to My Mother” by Salvatore Quasimodo (Translated by Jack Bevan)
CHAPTER THIRTY: The Importance of Self-Actualization — 190
“On His Blindness” by John Milton
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: The Power of Faith — 195
“PSALM 23, A PSALM OF DAVID”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: The Thrill of Discovery — 199
“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: The enduring Thrill of the Moment — 205
“High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee Jr.
CHAPTER THIRTY- FOUR: The Long Reach of Trauma — 211
“The Sentence” by Anna Akhmatova (Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: The Danger of Anger — 220
“The Poison Tree” by William Blake
PART FOUR: A DESIGN FOR LIVING AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Principles for a Good Life — 229
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Remaining Steady through Life’s Ups and Downs — 234
“If” by Rudyard Kipling
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Never Give Up — 243
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Putting One Foot in Front of the Other — 249
“The Waking” by Theodore Roethke
CHAPTER FORTY: Should You React or Proact? — 256
“Waiting for the Barbarians” by Constantine Cavafy (Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: It’s the Journey that Matters — 261
“Ithaka” by Constantine Cavity (Translated by Edmund Keeley)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Hold On to Your Dreams — 269
“Dreams” by Langston Hughes
PART FIVE: INTO THE NIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: Should You Just Go for It? — 279
“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by William Butler Yeats
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: Or Should You Be Careful? — 283
“Musee des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: Dying Too Soon — 289
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: Aging by Degrees — 296
“I know I Am Getting Old” by Wendell Berry
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: The Critical Importance of Communication — 301
“Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: Should You Rage? — 310
“Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: Or is it Time to Go Gently? — 317
“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson
CHAPTER FIFTY: I Did Not Die! — 323
“Do not stand at my grave and weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye
A Few Last Thoughts — 329
Source Materials and Further Reading — 330
Permissions — 337
Acknowledgements — 341
Index — 343
About the Author — 365
I know most of the “western canon” poems (by Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats, Auden, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Frost, etc.) listed above, but many of the others are new to me. No mention of my favorite poet, Wallace Stevens, or my favorite of his poems, “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm,” alas.
Deb, I suspect Norman Rosenthal may have run into the same problem we’ve discussed about compilation CDs: the price of the material. Wallace Stevens might have been too pricey.
The only relevant poem for today is, sadly, Yeats’s “The Second Coming” –
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
I know some of these, but as a rule, I don’t read poetry, never really have.
Jeff, Yeats is my favorite poet and “The Second Coming” certainly apt for this period of global aggression by Putin. Oil just spiked at $130 a barrel which translates to $5 a gallon at the pump.
Thanks to growing up during a time when reading poetry was part of an English curriculum, quite a few.
I remember when Phil wanted to use poems in one of his books, some poets waived any fee, others were quite large. It didn’t seem to relate to the poet’s fame either.
Patti, fees for songs, poems, even quotations from novels seem to have a marketplace of their own. I know a couple of poets who waived fees to allow other writers to use their works free of charge. And, I know some other writers who demanded payment for use.
I don’t want to name names because I can’t remember who it was for sure, but there was a whole thing with someone wanting to use a couple of lines from an Irving Berlin song, and Berlin supposedly being a real hard@ss about it, refusing permission to use even a single line without hefty compensation.
Jeff, I’ve heard similar stories about other “name” composers and writers. Greed.
I never read much poetry past high school and every time I see the TWILIGHT ZONE episode “The Changing of the Guard” (which is at least once a year and references a lot more than just poetry) I find myself thinking that I really need to pick up some books and give myself a crash course on some of the major works I’ve missed. This might be a worthwhile read. Thanks for the tip.
Byron, there’s a wide variety of poems in POETRY RX. Not a bad poetry collection to start off with!
I like the one about the man from Nantucket.