That’s funny, because it’s taking the life out of my savings! BA-dump-BUMP!

As psychiatrist Jack Leedy explained in his 1969 essay “Principles of Poetry Therapy,” “For poetry therapy, the standard is not whether it is good or great poetry, but whether it will help heal the ill. For this purpose, Longfellow may be better than Shakespeare, Herrick than Milton, Greifer than Donne, or Holmes than Sophocles.”

Proponents trace the notion of the healing power of art to ancient ritual singing and chanting, as well as to Aristotle’s concept of catharsis. The idea of poetry as a way to “get better” or “get healed” remains powerfully alive in our society today. In former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky’s anthologies from his Favorite Poem project, again and again contributors recommend poems because—as one Massachusetts finance manager says—they “helped me through the darkest times.”

That’s lovely. Sniff. But:

For poet August Kleinzahler, the difference between poetry as a tool and poetry as an art is the level of complexity and formal achievement of the latter. Reached by phone in Austin, Texas, he is somewhat sympathetic to poetry therapy’s goals: “Whatever works—rubbing pig feces or listening to Fox talk radio or taking serotonin reuptake inhibitors—if that makes someone less suicidal or homicidal or miserable, great. . . . But it has nothing to do with art per se.”

Gosh, I like that guy. (From GoodReports)