Well said, Steven. I love that quip by Szasz, and I have long admired and "followed," as it were, his great little book. Indeed, I paraphrase him in my introductory essay to A Gathered Distance: "Living disables us, sooner or later." I teach my Literary Journalism students a wonderful review essay by Jerome Groopman, from the New Yorker from a few years back. You don't need to read it, having covered off on this so well, but you may enjoy it: Jerome Groopman, “The Troubled History of Psychiatry,” The New Yorker, 20 May 2019; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/27/the-troubled-history-of-psychiatry. (A Gather Distance, by the way, is very largely a cluster of poems dealing with grief. And on Thursday I lost my mother, on Monday we bury her; I am about to take the journey again.)
Dear Mark, Thanks for the Groopman reference; it is an excellent review. BTE, Szasz was a professor of mine at Syracuse University. I am sorry to hear of your mum's death. My mother-in-law died in her home in Scotland during one of the lockdowns. We were unable to attend her funeral and were forced to settle for Zoom. I know how you must be feeling. To paraphrase a poet, "Her days were a sacred music, then, and a pastoral air or two." Please accept my condolences.
How wonderful to feel so closely connected, through you, to Szasz. his writing suggests a deep humanity; and I suspect a little sacred music played in him, too. Hearing my words for Mum quoted back to me was very moving and beautiful, Steven. Thank you. There is a sentence near the end of the Groopman—"Words, for better or worse, have the power to change the neurotransmitters in the brain," I think—that I often use in teaching and as an argument, from science, for poetry. Condolences, too, for the loss or your mother in law.
An excellent explanation of the ludicrous shift towards labelling every human emotion or condition as an 'illness'.
Well said, Steven. I love that quip by Szasz, and I have long admired and "followed," as it were, his great little book. Indeed, I paraphrase him in my introductory essay to A Gathered Distance: "Living disables us, sooner or later." I teach my Literary Journalism students a wonderful review essay by Jerome Groopman, from the New Yorker from a few years back. You don't need to read it, having covered off on this so well, but you may enjoy it: Jerome Groopman, “The Troubled History of Psychiatry,” The New Yorker, 20 May 2019; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/27/the-troubled-history-of-psychiatry. (A Gather Distance, by the way, is very largely a cluster of poems dealing with grief. And on Thursday I lost my mother, on Monday we bury her; I am about to take the journey again.)
Dear Mark, Thanks for the Groopman reference; it is an excellent review. BTE, Szasz was a professor of mine at Syracuse University. I am sorry to hear of your mum's death. My mother-in-law died in her home in Scotland during one of the lockdowns. We were unable to attend her funeral and were forced to settle for Zoom. I know how you must be feeling. To paraphrase a poet, "Her days were a sacred music, then, and a pastoral air or two." Please accept my condolences.
How wonderful to feel so closely connected, through you, to Szasz. his writing suggests a deep humanity; and I suspect a little sacred music played in him, too. Hearing my words for Mum quoted back to me was very moving and beautiful, Steven. Thank you. There is a sentence near the end of the Groopman—"Words, for better or worse, have the power to change the neurotransmitters in the brain," I think—that I often use in teaching and as an argument, from science, for poetry. Condolences, too, for the loss or your mother in law.