Sylvia Path Effect... dang!

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I was just doing my blog rounds... and I came upon rinka's post... and it gave me the creeps after reading it...

Do Poets Die Young?

Thu Apr 22,10:12 AM ET Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Poets die young -- younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers, a U.S. researcher says.


It could be because poets are tortured and prone to self-destruction, or it could be that poets become famous young, so their early deaths are noticed, said James Kaufman of the Learning Research Institute at California State University at San Bernardino.


For the report, published in the Journal of Death Studies, Kaufman studied 1,987 dead writers from various centuries from the United States, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe. He classified the writers as fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and nonfiction writers. He did not study the causes of death.


"Among American, Chinese and Turkish writers, poets died significantly younger than nonfiction writers," Kaufman wrote in the report. "Among the entire sample, poets died younger than both fiction writers and nonfiction writers."


Because Kaufman studied some writers who lived hundreds of years ago, it is impossible to compare their average age of death to that of the general population.


"On average, poets lived 62 years, playwrights 63 years, novelists 66 years and nonfiction writers lived 68 years," Kaufman said in an interview conducted by e-mail.


Kaufman has also studied poets and mental illness.


"What I found was pretty consistent with the death finding actually, female poets were much more likely to suffer from mental illness (e.g., be hospitalized, commit suicide, attempt suicide) than any other kind of writer and more likely than other eminent women," he said.


"I've dubbed this the 'Sylvia Plath Effect."'


Sylvia Plath was a poet and novelist who killed herself in 1963 at the age of 30.


There could also be a more benign explanation for poets' early demise, Kaufman said. "Poets produce twice as much of their lifetime output in their twenties as novelists do," he said.


So when a budding novelist dies young, few people may notice.


"A great novelist or nonfiction writer who dies at 28 may not have yet produced her or his magnum opus."


Kaufman said poets should not worry, but should perhaps look after their health.


"The fact that a Sylvia Plath ... may die young does not necessarily mean an Introduction to Poetry class should carry a warning that poems may be hazardous to one's health," he said.


- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news

rinka posted...
my take on this is, is that poets are hypersensitive.
and it gets overwhelming.
and the overload of emotional stimulus gets too loud.
and nothing is able to shut the noise out.
and it's the kind of loud that echoes through you.
the way a drum's base seems to alter your heartbeat when it's up too high.
and you're groping, feeling the wall, trying to find a crack that feels like a probable opening.
wanting to run out.
run away.
leave the deafening chamber of pain.
and you can't feel a door.
no way out.
and all that's left to do.
is die.
it doesn't have to mean physical suicide. a soul death more like it.
the beauty of feeling, the beauty of emotion too costly. so you shut the world out.
you deafen yourself.
and it's still loud, but you can't hear anymore.
sadly, along with the noise you shut out,
you shut out the gentle whispers of the promise of hope.

grabe... deep noh... after reading this i needed to catch my breath.. kasi whoa man! nyak! ang pangarap kong maging poet ay nakakatakot pala syet.. hehehe...