17. Dead, mad, or a poet (Or, how to be less tortured)

(First things first: Thank you to thank Taylor Swift for releasing The Tortured Poets Department last month and thus making this episode kind of topical…)

We’re all way too familiar with the idea that emotional suffering or “madness” is the most powerful source of our creativity. It’s the cultural story that just won’t die. But today, I’m sharing a folklore-and-history-informed counter-narrative.

(Note that this is truly not even a lukewarm album take, Swifties do not come for me.)

In this narrative, it’s not madness we’re supposed to be seeking when we go out to the edge of ourselves in search of inspiration – it’s divine joy. The kind of joy that by its nature isn’t going to look or feel the way we’d expect it to, but that will bring us closer to our truest fates.

I think we have a duty to liberate our stories from the cult of the tortured artist. After all, we get to choose the lineages of our creative work. So if we don’t want to be the tortured poet… we don’t have to be.

Tune in to discover what the lineage of the inspired poet can offer us instead.

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Episode links:

Cauldron of Poesy translations

• P. L. Henry, 1980
• Liam Breatnach, 1981
• Erynn Rowan Laurie (non-academic)

General historical references

H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/2018/03/dead-mad-or-a-poet/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadair_Idris#Myths,_legends_and_popular_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Knockgrafton

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