Recycled Poetry?

Wow, its been just about 8 months since i have posted anything. Too Long. Anyways....

And away we go...


Something has been bugging me for a very long time, years even. I have written hundreds of poems, a great many of them have been about a specific person. The person has been many different people over my 23 years of writing. My issue is recycling. Some time ago I read some of what i have left (I only have a few years of my writing, but that is a story for another time), and noticed that some of them, had meaning for the time I was reading them, and about the one I have been with the longest, have the most memories and been through the most with. Obviously, if you know me at all, I speak of my wife. As I look back, i noticed that i never once wrote anything for my previous wife, but there are many many reasons why she is my EX-wife. Oops.. tangent.. sorry. I have not wanted to share them for fear of insulting her because they were not originally written specifically for her. I suggest that, unless there is a specific name or some other very specific mention, it shouldn't matter, what should matter is the content, message, and feelings involved the poem to whom I give it. There are some simple arguments I will make for this, and some much more esoteric.
First, lets put this anecdotaly, but more as an anecdotal question. The real question here is: is it wrong to recycle a poem of deep emotional meaning? Simply put, no.

Let say Jack is in love with Jill, and wants to do something romantic for her but lacks the ability to put his feelings on paper beyond rudimentary prose. He goes on-line (because he has no library card, what would he do at a library?) and Googles romantic poetry and comes to the most often quoted, recited and most prolific writer of romantic lines; William Shakespeare. He skims through a few and find one that strikes a chord with him and expresses how he feels about Jill. Later he recites said poem and she gushes and throws her arms around him and thanks him for being so romantic. Was what he did wrong in anyway? Only if he takes credit for writing it. Here is why; Mr. Shakespeare died 395 years ago, surely he did not know Jill, nor Jack, but he knew of the love they felt for eachother. He did not write it for Jill, but does that take away any meaning that Jack sees in it for Jill? No. Maybe he wrote it for someone specific? Even if he did, again, it does not lessen the meaning, and emotion that Jack wishes to express to Jill. Recycled poetry. Jack has something to say, it has been said before, better than he can think to say it, so he chooses someone else's words that were written for someone else, because they express what he wants to say to Jill.
That is the simple explanation. The other, is just a little more difficult to grasp, but no less important.
There have been many odd connective events that have happened between Volante and I and some still happen today (which still puts a smile on my face that only love could produce). One example is regardless of distance between, we still manage to think the same thing at the same time. Another is this, VERY early on in our relationship, something happened that was similar to, but not quite de ja vu. I remembered a dream I had years before. It was just a fleeting moment, a glance at her at a certain place at a certain time, that happened in a dream. Yes, she had been in a dream of mine years before I met her. I did not know it at the time, but still, one of those dreams that just kinda sticks for some reason. This suggests some sort of clairvoyance on some level of things to come. These little moments happen to me more often than I pay attention to and I really should learn to read them and pay attention to them better. When this dream happened, i was involved with someone else. I was doing more writing at the time than I am now. What if, I consciously was writing about [Person] I was with at that time, but subconsciously was writing about someone to come into my life years later (Volante)? Why not? I did see her in a dream (yes, just saw her in a dream, did not specifically dream about her) years prior to actually meeting her. This has happened with many aspects of my life, my dreams that i shrug off as meaning less, sometimes years later, happen just as I dreamed it. So, entirely plausible that I was (unknowingly) writing about Volante but [Person] i was with was just the trigger to get it down on paper.

This is a dilemma I have fought with myself over for a few years now. I, in a way am my own Shakespeare, I write, but years later find new meaning in what I wrote, for a new time to express how I feel at that time.

So, I ask all of you out there, is it wrong to recycle poems?