Poetry and Madness...

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 with their confusing metaphors and convoluted phrasing may seem like the rantings of a disturbed mind.

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.

Let's Live Suddenly Without Thinking

E. E. Cummings

let’s live suddenly without thinking

under honest trees,
                        a stream
does.the brain of cleverly-crinkling
-water pursues the angry dream
of the shore. By midnight,
                                a moon
scratches the skin of the organised hills

an edged nothing begins to prune

let’s live like the light that kills
and let’s as silence,
                            because Whirl’s after all:
(after me) love, and after you.
I occasionally feel vague how
vague i don’t know tenuous Now-
spears and The Then-arrows making do
our mouths something red, something tall

Scarborough Bluffs

"The skin of organized hills" - photographers can be a little mad too. Please post any thoughts you have on the topic.