Living in Verse: Sites of the Poetic Imagination

Abstract

This chapter explores the multiple sites in which the poetic imagination is operative. Four such sites may be identified. The first is experience—how one relates to the world, both inner and outer; the second, the challenge of bringing experience to language; the third, the process of researchers/interpreters discerning what is said; and the fourth, the process of writing, wherein researchers/interpreters seek to articulate the meaning and significance of what has been disclosed. In view of these sites, one may wonder what can be learned about “real life” and whether it has any bearing upon psychological science. But insofar as “real life” is itself poetically figured, one may begin to wonder in a different way and thereby begin to reimagine the very meaning of science.