Word: poem
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Once . . . he wrote a poem. And called it "Chops," Because that was the name of his dog, and that's what it was all about. And the teacher gave him an "A" And a gold star. And his mother hung it on the kitchen door, and read it to all his aunts ... Once . . . he wrote another poem. And he called it "Question Marked Innocence," Because that was the name of his grief and that's what it was all about. And the professor gave him an "A" And a strange and steady look. And his mother never hung...
Patients in poetry therapy are encouraged to read verse, write it, or both. The technique seems to be effective in both individual and group treatment, probably because serious poems usually touch on deep, universal emotions. According to Yale Psychiatrist Albert Rothenberg, a patient who suddenly deciphers the message of a great poet may experience a flash of understanding similar to the dramatic insight that can come to patients in ordinary psychotherapy. By writing an original poem, an inhibited, repressed person may tell his doctor much that was previously secret. Poetry, says Rothenberg, "is even more revelatory than dreams...
...year-old boy whose fate became known to English Professor Abraham Blinder-man of the State University of New York. Blinderman thinks that the boy's teacher should have recognized his deep distress, and he believes that if the youngster had been in poetry therapy, his eloquent poem (see box) would have been understood as a cry for help. In that case, psychiatric treatment might have saved him. As it was, his cry went unheeded, and two years later he committed suicide...
...expansive shifting pattern of space. Wofford, who teaches art at Bennington College, regards a visit he paid to the Southwest in 1968 as one of the key experiences in his work-especially some nights he spent camping on the edge of the Grand Canyon, which provoked a long autobiographical poem named Grand Canyon Search Ceremony as well as a number of paintings: "It was a holy atmosphere, so silent, so vast; I was stunned...
What is to be made of this nostalgic book about the Brooklyn Dodgers? Its title comes from a poem by Dylan Thomas, and its first chapter is called "Lines on the Transpontine Madness." "Transpontine": a very British word meaning that which lies over a bridge, specifically one that crosses the Thames. For reasons too academic to mention, it also means melodramatic...