Poetic Dialogues

In Poetic Dialogues, Sandra Buechler highlights poetry’s potential as a vehicle for an empathic understanding of others, and of ourselves. In order to hone the art of analytic interpretation, Buechler suggests reading poetry, among other activities. Poetry often provides an excellent venue for becoming acclimated to economical, truthful, direct language. Many poems deliver pithy and memorable phrases. They come for an hour and stay for a lifetime. They model the courage to look in a mirror and say what you see. They palpably demonstrate our common humanity. By giving voice to sorrow, loneliness, shame, joy, and other human experiences they close the distance between self and other. Some poems provide touchstones that make us feel whole. Our lives may make a little more sense, listening to them. Like good interpretations, some poems help us weave together seemingly disparate experiences. Poetry, like psychoanalysis, deals with big subjects- time, loss, death, beauty, childhood, nature, and the good life, among others. Poems are not afraid of mystery. Like psychoanalysis, they may let meaning happen slowly. They leaven sorrow and foster wonder. A good poem, like a meaningful interpretation, may introduce us to the stranger within ourselves.