The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Poetry as religion

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Sean Illing speaks with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, whose book The Wonder Paradox asks: If we don't have God or religion, what — if anything — do we lose? They discuss how religion accesses meaning — through things like prayer, ceremony, and ritual — and Jennifer speaks on the ways that poetry can play similar roles in a secular way. They also discuss some of the "tricks" that poets use, share favorite poems, and explore what it would mean to "live the questions" — and even learn to love them — without having the answers.


Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Jennifer Michael Hecht (@Freudeinstein), poet, historian; author

References: 

  • The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives by Jennifer Michael Hecht (FSG; 2023)
  • Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht (HarperOne; 2004)
  • Rainer Maria Rilke, from a 1903 letter to Franz Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet (pub. 1929)
  • Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
  • "Why do parrots live so long?" by Charles Q. Choi (LiveScience; May 23, 2022)
  • "The survival of poetry depends on the failure of language," from The Tree of Meaning: Language, Mind, and Ecology by Robert Bringhurst (Counterpoint; 2009)
  • "Traveler, There Is No Road" ("Caminante, no hay camino") by Antonio Machado (1917)
  • "A Free Man's Worship" by Bertrand Russell (1903)
  • Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority by Emmanuel Levinas (1961)

     

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