Poetry Bad For You?

[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.