Poetry Bad For You?

[The Captain]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040421/hl_nm/health_poets_dc_1

It makes you wonder..

What if you're a poet and novelist?

Take care all.

[Logan]

I'm glad I'm not a poet.

[Agent Proto]

Probably they have problems. Not all poets behave like that, but yeah, most tend to do a lot of work done because poetry is so short compared to novels.

[Ryoko Masaki]

i used to be a poet but...i kinda lost my insperation to write so guess i'll live long..:p

[Jebus]

I write off and on. All depends on inspiration. So I hope I live awhile.

[Strider]

They're supposed to play the role of the suffering artist, so why does this come as a surprise to anyone?

[DMKA]

I don't believe this report for a second.

[Crystal_Clear]

...And how the living hell can poetry be bad for you?

[DMKA]

"Because some page on the internet said it is"

[Crystal_Clear]

"Because some page on the internet said it is"
That makes perfect sense :cool:

[Peegee]

correlation = causation fallacy pls.

[PeTeRL90]

Then let me die young.

I'm not going to stop doing something that I love because of something like this.

[eestlinc]

what about composers who also are poets on the side?

[Peegee]

Depends on whether their poetry was noticed :p

Time for angsty poetry! Everybody join!

Dark brooding mist
The moon is swallowed by the eclipsed hate
My anger transcends into wrath
My suicide is empty

[Meow]

In the summer months the average amount of crime in urban areas increases, so surely heat incites unsavory and immoral activity.

i generally put little stock in these sorts of studies. It's been postulated that creative literary genius often comes hand in hand with certain psychological disorders, or perhaps even the other way around. And hey, i can't even say that's absolutely wrong, because maybe the sensitivity of perception or mindset or etc. that it takes to be a good writer leaves a person more prone to being messed up. Or maybe people convinced they're messed up decide to become writers, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or maybe all these studies are just too focused on finding issue in the creative world, because i'm sure you could find similar lifespan discrepancies between, say, plumbers and welders and truck drivers. Or accountants and economists. Or any number of other jobs. And there could be innumerable reasons to explain any of them beyond their job selection. Maybe slightly more stressed people on average become accountants. i don't know.

Anyway, PG's got it: Correlation does not equal causation. That's some basic rational law right there, so either this article was stupified to a truly <i>ad absurdam</i> degree - so simplified as to be logically unreasonable - or somebody just made an unscientific case study. i'd assume the former, but you never know.

[Dr Unne]

<i> "What I found was pretty consistent with the death finding actually, female poets were much more likely to suffer from mental illness (e.g., be hospitalized, commit suicide, attempt suicide) than any other kind of writer and more likely than other eminent women," he said.</i>

Maybe people with mental illness are attracted to poetry. And if they weren't poets, they'd probably still have mental illness. I'd be more likely to believe that mental illness causes people to like poetry than that poetry is somehow bad for you and causes mental illness. If anything.

[eestlinc]

it's like how people say gay men are attracted to the arts but probably more likely is that artistic communities tend to be more accepting of homosexuality and thus the gay members of the artistic community are more willing to be open about it.