I like a MOOC. One of the courses I dipped into examined the effects of literature on mental health. People benefited from reading or listening to the written word to ease their troubles.
A researcher at Warwick University asked if I would be willing to read a poem a day for ten days. Of course, I agreed. Daily emails bring me that day’s poem. I merely have to read it. No feedback required so far, and I have reached Day Six. Yesterday’s poem was by R.S. Thomas, a Welshman mocked for his English accent, who wrote beautifully succinct poems.
I read one of his poems at an open mic night on St David’s day a few years ago. He and his wife lived in austere circumstances in their senior years, and he had the craggy features of a man who has experienced much in life. My own pudgy visage displays no such character, but then I have a painting in the attic to do my suffering for me.
One of the daily poems was by Thomas Hardy and had a man and a woman in a carriage in the rain. A romantic poem speculating what might have happened if the rain had lasted a bit longer. I favour brevity and have yet to finish Larkin’s poem that runs into seven or eight verses. I vaguely remember it in any case.
I’m not sure how or if my mental health has been affected by the readings. Reading has always been a calming activity for me, even the newspaper can draw me into the thoughts of others and let me lose myself in their words.
odespinner 