{"id":132240,"date":"2018-12-20T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=132240"},"modified":"2019-01-08T14:08:24","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T19:08:24","slug":"poetry-rx-and-you-want-to-be-liked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/20\/poetry-rx-and-you-want-to-be-liked\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Rx: And You Want to Be Liked"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our column\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>, readers\u00a0write in<\/a>\u00a0with a specific emotion, and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week,\u00a0Kaveh Akbar is on the line.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u00a9 Ellis Rosen<\/p><\/div>\n

Dear Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

I am an older man. My wife died a few years ago and I miss her terribly, but I am happy with my many friends. However, I am bisexual and a much younger man has fallen in love with me. I like him very much but I feel that he deserves to have a more \u201cappropriate\u201d lover than me; still, I don\u2019t want to give him up. Is there a poem that will help me enjoy his company without having to requite his love and also allow me to not feel guilty?<\/em><\/p>\n

Confused Unrequiter<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear CU,<\/p>\n

There is so much going on in your short letter. I\u2019m so sorry you have to carry your wife\u2019s absence\u2014I very literally can\u2019t imagine what that\u2019s like, I have no experiential referent. I hope you are speaking about all this with an actual professional and not just this silly poet drinking tea at his keyboard. But, since you\u2019ve asked me, I must step in and ask you what exactly you mean when you say the man deserves a more \u201cappropriate\u201d lover than you. Is this man an adult? Do you trust his intelligence? If so, then why should you be the arbiter of what he needs, what he deserves? His desire is not yours to muzzle, neither is yours deserving of muzzling.<\/p>\n

I give you Eduardo C. Corral\u2019s poem \u201cTo Robert Hayden<\/a>\u201d (I recommend listening to Corral read it through the link, if you\u2019re able).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00bfTe acuerdas?
\nI sat on the edge
\nof a bench,
\nuntied my shoes.
\nFace down, eyes shut,
\nyou breathed in
\nthe aroma
\nof sweat\u00a0&<\/em>\u00a0allspice
\ncoming off
\nthe sheets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is such hunger here, and you get the sense the two lovers are meeting after having each traveled separately to the desperate ends of yearning. It\u2019s one of those magical pieces where silence feels like the poet\u2019s true medium, language is just the negative space around it. You have been forced to build a new life out of such negative space, and it sounds like you\u2019ve done so admirably: your happy friends are evidence of as much. But now, miracle of miracles, someone is in love with you again!<\/p>\n

I tossed
\nmy ring\u2014gold,
\ninscribed\u2014toward a pile
\nof clothes.
\nBut the ring
\ndropped in the small
\nof your back
\nwhere it rattled
\n&<\/em>\u00a0rattled like a coin
\nin a beggar\u2019s
\ncup.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you don\u2019t love him back, well, that happens sometimes, and you two can have an honest conversation about that. If you aren\u2019t yet ready to date after your wife\u2019s passing, that also is a conversation to be had. But if, as I suspect is the case, you are not allowing yourself to reciprocate his love because you believe you are unsuitable for such tenderness, I suggest you reexamine your own mind\u2014it seems to believe it knows more than the universe that gifted you with this man. You are worthy of desire. You are worthy of love. \u00bfTe acuerda<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\u2013KA<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

I simply feel as if the world is big and my voice cannot be heard. I am so small that I feel like nothing. I feel as if I can\u2019t do anything that would scream, \u201cLook at me!\u201d It makes me feel empty and not in control of my life. I want to know if there are any words that can help me feel like something again.<\/em><\/p>\n

From,
\n<\/em>A Hopeful Caterpillar<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Caterpillar,<\/p>\n

This is one of those cases where the perfect poem leapt to mind immediately. Here is Stephen Crane\u2019s \u201cA Man Said to the Universe<\/a>\u201d in its entirety:<\/p>\n

A man said to the universe:
\n\u201cSir, I exist!\u201d
\n\u201cHowever,\u201d replied the universe,
\n\u201cThe fact has not created in me
\nA sense of obligation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People talk about this poem as being incredibly dreary or fatalistic, but I always feel a great deal of hope reading it\u2014an ambivalent, noninterventionist cosmos implies our loci of control are entirely internal, our fates our own to author. Your life is a great slab of marble and look, you\u2019re the one holding the hammer and chisel! What impossible luck! What an occasion for gratitude and courage!<\/p>\n

\u2013KA<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>Dear Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

I have been talking with my therapist about starting medication for anxiety. I have been coping with anxiety for as long as I can remember. The problem is, I am afraid of the side effects of the medication and of change (maybe even of change for the better). Anxiety is a hassle, but it has also been a life-long companion; I know what to do with it. Making change like this feels like a risk, even if it\u2019s a risk worth taking. Is there a poem for facing this all of this unknown?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yours truly,<\/em>
\nAnxious for change<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Anxious,<\/p>\n

I’ve always found it strange that when a person\u2019s pancreas misbehaves, they\u2019ll take insulin without question, when their heart is on the fritz they\u2019ll take blood pressure meds without a second thought, but when their brain\u2014the most complicated organ by several orders of magnitude\u2014malfunctions, taking medication becomes an elaborate existential drama. There are billions of ways our brain chemistry can conspire against us, and I commend you for taking the first steps toward getting yours right. I understand the terror of giving up something known, even when it\u2019s hurting you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true\u2014some pain stays so long its absence becomes a different pain. When I got sober, I found myself facing these vast excruciating expanses of unspoken for time\u2014no cons to set up, no deals to broker, no crises to hide from, just the immobilizing possibility of all human experience waiting for me at every blink.<\/p>\n

For you, I\u2019d recommend taking a look at Sarah Kay\u2019s smart thoughts on Shira Erlichman\u2019s\u00a0 work<\/a>, but I also want to offer Bianca Stone\u2019s \u201cReading a Science Article on the Airplane to JFK<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And you have just eaten
\na bag of cinnamon-flavored chips
\nand assessed that if you met
\na wonderful new person
\nwho ran from you in horror
\nyou would fill their space
\nwith calculated desolation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is a poem that gets anxiety right\u2014not even the most aggressively mundane activity, munching a cinnamon chip on a plane, can stop the intrusion of malicious thought cycles. \u201cThat there are bridges \/ not built in me. That there are areas \/ that do not light up.\u201d But ultimately? The poem ends:<\/p>\n

And you want to be good.
\nAnd you want to be liked.
\nAnd you want to recover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A life need not be governed by dread. How wonderful! And how fortunate you are to have this opportunity to find that out for yourself.<\/p>\n

-KA<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want more? Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>Need a poem?\u00a0Write to us<\/a>! In the next installment, Sarah Kay will be answering questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Kaveh Akbar\u2019s poems have appeared recently in\u00a0<\/em>The\u00a0New<\/span>\u00a0Yorker<\/span>,<\/em>\u00a0Poetry,<\/em>\u00a0t<\/em>he<\/em>\u00a0New<\/span>\u00a0York Times,<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>Nation,\u00a0and elsewhere. His first book is\u00a0<\/em>Calling a Wolf a Wolf. Born in Tehran, Iran, he teaches at\u00a0Purdue<\/span>\u00a0University and in the low-residency M.F.A. programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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