Poetry to Heal, Inspire and Enjoy Poetry Rx presents 50 great poems as seen through the eyes of a renowned psychiatrist and New York Times bestseller. In this book, you will find insights into love, sorrow, ecstasy and everything in between: Love in the moment or for a lifetime; love that is fulfilling or addictive; when to break up and how to survive when someone breaks up with you. Separate sections deal with responses to the natural world, and the varieties of human experience (such as hope, reconciliation, leaving home, faith, self-actualization, trauma, anger, and the thrill of discovery). Other sections involve finding your way in the world and the search for meaning, as well as the final stages of life. In describing this multitude of human experiences, using vignettes from his work and life, Rosenthal serves as a comforting guide to these poetic works of genius. Through his writing, the workings of the mind, as depicted by these gifted writers speak to us as intimately as our closest friends. Rosenthal also delves into the science of mind and brain. Who would have thought, for example, that listening to poetry can cause people to have goosebumps by activating the reward centers of the brain? Yet research shows that to be true.

And who were these fascinating poets? In a short biosketch that accompanies each poem, Rosenthal draws connections between the poets and their poems that help us understand the enigmatic minds that gave birth to these masterworks. Altogether, a fulfilling and intriguing must-read for anyone interested in poetry, the mind, self-help and genius. CONTENTS Introduction PART ONE Loving and Losing Chapter One Is There an Art to Losing? One Art by Elizabeth Bishop Chapter Two Can Love Transform You? How do I love thee? Let me count the ways by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Chapter Three The Heart versus the Mind Pity me not because the light of day by Edna St. Vincent Millay Chapter Four Love in the Moment Lullaby by W. H. Auden Chapter Five When Love Fades Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert Chapter Six Getting Over a Breakup I: Acceptance Why so pale and wan fond lover? by Sir John Suckling Chapter Seven Getting Over a Breakup II: Reclaiming Yourself Love after Love by Derek Walcott, Chapter Eight Declaring Your Love Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer''s day? by William Shakespeare Chapter Nine Consoled by Love Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men''s eyes by William Shakespeare Chapter Ten In Praise of the Marriage of True Minds Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare Chapter Eleven Loss of a Loved One Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone (Funeral Blues) by W. H. Auden Chapter Twelve Will I Ever Feel Better? Time Does Not Bring Relief by Edna St.

Vincent Millay Chapter Thirteen Love Remembered When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats Chapter Fourteen Love after Death Remember by Christina Rossetti, PART TWO That Inward Eye Chapter Fifteen Transcendence in Nature Daffodils by William Wordsworth Chapter Sixteen The Memory of Daffodils Miracle on St. David''s Day by Gillian Clarke Chapter Seventeen Transcendence in Body and Mind Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey (excerpt) by William Wordsworth Chapter Eighteen The Power of Dark and Light There''s a certain Slant of light by Emily Dickinson Chapter Nineteen In Praise of Diversity Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins Chapter Twenty A Plea to Save the Natural World Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins Chapter Twenty-One The Importance of Being Needed Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Chapter Twenty-Two The Choices We Make The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Chapter Twenty-Three The Force of Longing Sea Fever by John Masefield Chapter Twenty-Four Finding Hope in Nature The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy PART THREE The Human Experience Chapter Twenty-Five The Power of Hope "Hope" is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson Chapter Twenty-Six Welcoming Your Emotions The Guest House by Jalaluddin Rumi Translated by Coleman Barks Chapter Twenty-Seven The Healing Power of Reconciliation Out beyond Ideas by Jalaluddin Rumi (Translated by Coleman Barks) Chapter Twenty-Eight Leaving Home Traveler, there is no road by Antonio Machado Translated by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney Chapter Twenty-Nine And Those You Leave Behind Letter to My Mother by Salvatore Quasimodo Translated by Jack Bevan Chapter Thirty The Importance of Self-Actualization On His Blindness by John Milton Chapter Thirty-One The Power of Faith Psalm 23 A Psalm of David Chapter Thirty-Two The Thrill of Discovery On First Looking into Chapman''s Homer by John Keats Chapter Thirty-Three The Enduring Thrill of the Moment High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr Chapter Thirty-Four The Long Reach of Trauma The Sentence by Anna Akhmatova Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer Chapter Thirty-Five The Danger of Anger A Poison Tree by William Blake PART FOUR A Design for Living and the Search for Meaning Chapter Thirty-Six Principles for a Good Life Polonius'' Advice to Laertes by William Shakespeare Chapter Thirty-Seven Remaining Steady through Life''s Ups and Downs If by Rudyard Kipling Chapter Thirty-Eight Never Give Up Invictus by William Ernest Henley Chapter Thirty-Nine Putting One Foot in Front of the Other The Waking by Theodore Roethke Chapter Forty Should You React or Proact? Waiting for the Barbarians by Constantine Cavafy Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard Chapter Forty-One It''s the Journey That Matters Ithaka by Constantine Cavafy Translated by Edmund Keeley Chapter Forty-Two Hold On to Your Dreams Dreams by Langston Hughes PART FIVE Into the Night Chapter Forty-Three Should You Just Go for It? An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by William Butler Yeats Chapter Forty-Four Or Should You Be Careful? Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden Chapter Forty-Five Dying Too Soon We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks Chapter Forty-Six Aging by Degrees I Know I Am Getting Old by Wendell Berry Chapter Forty-Seven The Critical Importance of Communication Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith Chapter Forty-Eight Should You Rage? Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas Chapter Forty-Nine Or Is it Time to Go Gently? Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson Chapter Fifty I Did Not Die! Do not stand at my grave and weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye A Few Last Thoughts Source Materials and Further Reading Permissions Acknowledgments Index About the Author INTRODUCTION You may well wonder how I, a psychiatrist with no formal literary credentials, have chosen to write about the power of poetry to heal, inspire, and bring joy to people. It all started with a single phone call that came in late one night. The caller was my friend David, and I knew immediately by the tone of his voice that something was wrong. He choked up as he told me that he had recently lost someone very dear to him.

"How can I go on?" he mused. "How will I manage?" Clichés and generalities readily come to mind in such situations, but I searched for something specific to say, something that might actually help. Recognizing that David is a person steeped in the arts, I said, "There is an art to losing, and like all art, it can be developed." He was silent for a while, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded more cheerful, as though he had tapped into some hidden source of hope. "Do you know the poem ''One Art'' by Elizabeth Bishop?" he asked. I told him no. "Well, let me read it to you," and he began: "''The art of losing isn''t hard to master.''" As he read on, his voice gathered strength and energy with each stanza.

Afterwards his mood was lighter--and strangely, so was mine. "Can a poem really help a grieving person?" I wondered, "and if so, might other poems also have healing powers?" I marveled also at how David had reached into the depths of his grief and presented me with a gift--a poem that offered me a fresh perspective on how to help someone out of the darkness that can engulf you wh.