How poetry can help us understand philosophy

The beauty of poetry can add that extra layer of much needed mental processing to fully reach the understanding of a message. Why? Well because we're creatures of habit, and sometime simply describing something in our normal fashion is so cut and dry to the point that we miss the emotion behind the message and sometimes that missing emotion is what carries us towards completion of understanding. Poetry helps break us from our normal way of thinking, it requires us to dig further into what the writers full intent was and the emotions driving it. Watch this short story for more information on why David Whyte thinks poetry helps us understand philosophy.

"Lost" [by David Wagoner]

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.

-- David Wagoner(1999)

More on Devine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy

"Poets are the technicians of the sacred"

by DJ PARSON