the emotional rollercoaster of reading poetry...

Oh, the art of reading is very important ... You can inadvertently read some kind of Pasternak and that's it ... you are not who you were anymore :)

butters said:   i am roiled by dark tides and blinded by light; one second, examining close-up the delicacy of an ice-crystaled leaf--the next, mired in the stinking guts of some horrific mind-beast.

it's kind of exhausting. rewarding, but exhausting, emotionally. sometimes it's too much and i need to distance myself from the input.

This is what happens to me. My whole entire day can be affected. I have to limit the stimulus or else I will probably go nuts. I just can't imagine this happens to most people. I hope it doesn't anyway, because it's the pits. I hear you Butters.

New to the site and tonight I read quite a few different people with their different styles and it was a nice experience.  Some I didn't understand because of the words used but made me feel something which is cool.  Some I just didn't like, sorry.  Some I could relate.  Some actually gave me images.  I came here a little unsure of what to think or if I even wanted to share.  Though I'm still on the fence about trying poetry out, I am more sure than I was when I joined.  I ended up following 2 poets that I enjoyed reading a few poems from and if I do stick around and write, I hope to read and to add a few more poets to my followed.

Poems are really a roller coaster. Emotions can change from sad to very happy. Creative and emotional people will understand me.

I too am an Empath, and pretty much all of my life I have had to learn to live with sensing what others feel, and over time I got to be pretty used to separating their feelings from my own so that I would not end up making their feelings my own without meaning to. Which is the dark side of what can happen to an Empath if things go all sideways. I can always seem to sense what is buried just beneath the surface when reading poems... whether it be love, anger, pain or elation. But due to my practice of keeping the feelings I sense separate from my own, it does not task me emotionally to read them. Unless of course, it is something that really hits home to me on a deep, personal level. Then, I feel it more intensely and cannot help but know those feelings myself... since in that case, they would be pertaining to things that I feel already. Likewise, I have a third inner eye (the spiritual eye) that never closes, so I am also used to seeing things not quite always of this world (something that I have experienced sinch birth). I have a very, very strong will though. I cannot even be hypnotized unless I will it to happen myself! So, I would wager that probably is what helps me to be able to deal with being an Empath and having a constantly open third eye as well as I do. :)

If and only if the poem really lets me understand what I feel is the meaning, can I get invested. I always like to turn those emotions around and reflect on my own life and experiences and integrate the new material into it. It gives great insight to share in other peoples work and see how they view the world. Sometimes it means not much if I think the writing is too fluff. That happens a lot more than you think. I am just a picky consumer.