{"id":3663,"date":"2013-03-27T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=3663"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:50:21","slug":"poetry-and-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=3663","title":{"rendered":"Poetry and Madness…"},"content":{"rendered":"

My last post was about the poem “Tom O’ Bedlam and the person on YouTube, Spoken Verse<\/a> who both recites wonderful poetry and recites poetry wonderfully : ) He is known on-line as, Tom O’ Bedlam.<\/p>\n

There are many times when I have thought that there is a strong correlation between poetry and madness. Poems with their confusing metaphors and convoluted phrasing may seem like the rantings of a disturbed mind.<\/p>\n

Poetry is often full of fantasy, with disjointed images, that seldom make sense on the first reading. Poems need to be read and re-read. I think of the repetitious musings of the deranged – the rhyme becoming a chant or the lines drifting off into nowhere. One of my favourite poets, e. e. cummings, is a master of this confusion.<\/p>\n

Let’s Live Suddenly Without Thinking<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nE. E. Cummings<\/span><\/h2>\n
let\u2019s live suddenly without thinking\n\nunder honest trees,\n                        a stream\ndoes.the brain of cleverly-crinkling\n-water pursues the angry dream\nof the shore. By midnight,\n                                a moon\nscratches the skin of the organised hills\n\nan edged nothing begins to prune\n\nlet\u2019s live like the light that kills\nand let\u2019s as silence,\n                            because Whirl\u2019s after all:\n(after me) love, and after you.\nI occasionally feel vague how\nvague i don\u2019t know tenuous Now-\nspears and The Then-arrows making do\nour mouths something red, something tall<\/span><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Scarborough Bluffs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n“The skin of organized hills” – photographers can be a little mad too. Please post any thoughts you have on the topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My last post was about the poem “Tom O’ Bedlam and the person on YouTube, Spoken Verse who both recites wonderful poetry and recites poetry wonderfully : ) He is known on-line as, Tom O’ Bedlam. There are many times when I have thought that there is a strong correlation between poetry and madness. Poems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3665,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions\/3665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}