"Poets should never marry"

[shopgirl]

I have just tonight joined this forum, and I suppose it is because I cant stop thinking about a quote i heard of when i was a teenager. The saying is "Poets should never marry." Yeats said it..as well as a few others. My question is: why? Do you agree? If not, why? If so, why? Expound. Thanks so much in advance.

[k2hsharpe]

i'm not quite sure
why Yeats' opinion on marriage
should carry any weight with me?
I'm not even a fan of his poetry
(nor do i like Jazz ... o sacrilege!)
: -/

*h'mmmm, wonders ... did Yeats also advocate celibacy for poets?*

[BenJohnson]

Struggling to see the difference between poll option 2 and 4 :) Looking at the past record for some poets marriages he may have had a point, or maybe he was worried that a comfortable life might stifle the desire to write. I can't say I agree with the sentiment, but maybe it depends how much of a poet you are in the first place.

[Maryd.]

I say get married... Statistics are sure, 1 in 2 or 3 will end up divorced these days anyway and not all of them will be poets...

[danecobain]

So far, everybody has voted for 'why not?' :D

I don't agree that poets should never marry, it makes more sense to say 'you should never marry a poet' - we tend to be an emotional bunch, i wouldn't want to live with myself if i was somebody else

[hiderinthebutterbox]

so much angst
so few pens


:) just kidding

actually why not marry a poet?

poetism ........ hmmm

[shopgirl]

Hah Ben.. yah i couldnt figure out how to mod a poll. Last choice should be Feel free to marry- unless its another poet. Anywhoo... :D So ive been thinking on the matter. I have a few little ideas. And when i say married...i mean in an emotionally committed relationship.. ring or not.
1. Perhaps he meant that poets are fickle..as they do rather tend to have their muses...whether they go anywhere with that or not. I just wrote a few poems yesterday simply from bumping into a such muse. Had i no morals or no ring on my finger im 100% sure sleeping with such muse would have brought much more poetry. Before i think more on the matter..we come to,
2. Perhaps he meant that poets feel more than others.. invest much more (albeit from their point of view) into the relationship. (On that note, have you read the book about the love languages?) So maybe he was trying to spare us from the emotional angst of unrequited love.
3. Maybe the time poets invest in their work.. (i have spent 3 whole days without eating or seeing the outside world when i was into something) leaves the spouse feeling as though their mate had went on a trip to another world and left them behind or they somehow otherwise feel neglected.
4. Perhaps if happily married, the poet no longer finds the solitude and/or unhappiness that lends to the writing of much sad, lonely, sorrowful prose.

Thanks for being there..mystery friends. Sorry if i offend anyone by..stereotyping.. perhaps i am alone in feeling the way i do and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a poet.

[shopgirl]

*h'mmmm, wonders ... did Yeats also advocate celibacy for poets?*

Umm i just noticed this and i adamantly refute such admoniton.. whether it be from Yeats, the pope or the president. No one- esp poets should be celibate. Thats just.. insanity.

[k2hsharpe]

"No one- esp poets should be celibate. Thats just.. insanity. "

the question arose since if Yeats advocated poets should never marry, by the mores of the day it would seem that celibacy was a logical consequence of this. Unless he was reccomending poets should live a life of sin ...
or what am i missing here ?
h'mmmmm ??
lol

[shopgirl]

Although it was not publicized they lived in sin even then. Perhaps he was advocating that. Hmm. I wonder why. Grr i cant sleep over this. Can i be so blunt as to ask... do any poets here have love problems? Do you think being a poet lends to that? Just wondering.

[k2hsharpe]

"Can i be so blunt as to ask... do any poets here have love problems? Do you think being a poet lends to that?"

a definition of "love problems" might help here. If Yeats was selfindulgent enough to feel free to shag whom ever / when ever he might not think it a problem? Of course his partners who find their emotional selves being trashed by a selfindulgent wanker who happened to be widely acknowledged as poet might consider it a problem? Silly them! Do they not understand ... he is poet, and this is justification enough if any justification is needed.

to answer your question, i don't think being poet lends itself to problems in love .... being human does, and perhaps being selfindulgent more so?
: -)

and PS
sorry to use Yeats as a bad example, especially if he didn't espouse the life i've depicted (i was just manufacturing a what if)

[scatterbrain]

to answer your question, i don't think being poet lends itself to problems in love .... being human does, and perhaps being selfindulgent more so?
: -)


Agreed!
Jo xx

[Morte Corax]

Sometimes that other person is the balance some of us need, so we don't blow our brains out from the sheer amounts of depression that inspire some of us to write.

[Respite]

1. Perhaps he meant that poets are fickle..as they do rather tend to have their muses...whether they go anywhere with that or not. I just wrote a few poems yesterday simply from bumping into a such muse. Had i no morals or no ring on my finger im 100% sure sleeping with such muse would have brought much more poetry. Before i think more on the matter..we come to,
2. Perhaps he meant that poets feel more than others.. invest much more (albeit from their point of view) into the relationship. (On that note, have you read the book about the love languages?) So maybe he was trying to spare us from the emotional angst of unrequited love.
3. Maybe the time poets invest in their work.. (i have spent 3 whole days without eating or seeing the outside world when i was into something) leaves the spouse feeling as though their mate had went on a trip to another world and left them behind or they somehow otherwise feel neglected.
4. Perhaps if happily married, the poet no longer finds the solitude and/or unhappiness that lends to the writing of much sad, lonely, sorrowful prose.

Thanks for being there..mystery friends. Sorry if i offend anyone by..stereotyping.. perhaps i am alone in feeling the way i do and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a poet.

I agree. I think Yeats was right . . . theoretically. I think the reasoning behind the quote is that poets feel quite a bit and are a passionate lot. And with that passion comes expectation, and as someone else said, and sometimes angst and depression from feeling intensely. The language of poetry is often one of romanticism or idealism, and it is sometimes hard to find someone who understands the impact of this on the poet as artist. On the other hand, it could be difficult to live with someone who's so connected to their work that it colors their perceptions of reality. So, i can see where Yeats was coming from.

Sometimes that other person is the balance some of us need, so we don't blow our brains out from the sheer amounts of depression that inspire some of us to write.

Agree.

[Sir Day]

Hi Shopgirl, Welcome.

I thought I was reading don't marry a shopgirl ( i'm dylexia )
The thing about poets we don't keep normal hours
leaving the marriage bed to for fill an inspiration.
A wife would always get you into court on inconsiderable differents.
The first poem ever I read is by Yeats,
It's Title Never Give The Heart Out Right
for love will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart out right... Well if you can't give your heart out right you can't be given it to a wife and she'll know your holding back for your beloveable poetry and feel second in the marriage.

[Ol' Man Nettal]

Although it was not publicized they lived in sin even then. Perhaps he was advocating that. Hmm. I wonder why. Grr i cant sleep over this. Can i be so blunt as to ask... do any poets here have love problems? Do you think being a poet lends to that? Just wondering.

I'm no stranger to love, yet still does love find me strange.

I almost detest ''being in love'' - Expressly, to exclusively love one -
on the succinct grounds that such an emotion muddles the thinking.
However, I do propound that friendship is the drive beyond all
lasting reciprocal 'love', and, though love be present, love is
credited as the perennial solder of two.
I have been remote, and I have been so close as to merge with another.
The former follows the latter in my case, and so human friendship itself
is much more valuable than exclusive love of a human.

It is my ambition to open the first family brothel.

Let your children swim in early impurity! give the wife a convivial surprise!
Send grandpa to the grave a happy man! All this, and you can watch
for a generously nominal fee.

That's right! because sex for pleasure puts pleasure in the sex.



OMN

[Hare]

Any creative endeavour demands a focussed channelling of emotional energy and this is not exclusive to the writing of poetry. Perhaps it's the difference between a hobby and a passion. It isn't that marriages can't sustain poetry; it's that partners invariably struggle to be something other than the exclusive focus of passion. Whatever it is which draws attention away from themselves can be felt as a threat, a theft of attention which is theirs by right of a wedding contract, a 'lover' who occupies the greater space in your mind. Demands are made, ultimatums are given...and your capacity for compromise will depend upon how driven you are in pursuit of whatever might be termed your 'art' and how prepared, or able, you are to dilute your passion until it assumes the proportions of a hobby. So, who knows? We are not defined by the title 'married' nor the title 'poet'.


Hare.

[Sir Day]

bravo