Help a Scientist Understand Poetry

[James Lohr]

Hello,

I don't "get" poetry and would like to educate myself as it's quite possible that I may be missing out. However, I suspect that the vast majority of books on poetry will, undoubtedly, fail to find any purchase whatsoever in my overly logical brain and may, if anything, turn me further away from the topic.

I had a similar problem with spirituality, though a few good authors (C.S. Lewis, for example) are sufficiently robust in their logic to make sense to me. I feel like I could have saved myself a lot of disappointment if I had simply read C.S. Lewis from the outset and skipped all other authors I was recommended on the topic.

This is not to say that I want simply to dwell on the dry technicalities of poetry; I would like to have it explained frankly and robustly from first principles with both clarity and a bit of beauty.

Is there a C.S. Lewis of poetry who can enlighten me?

Thank you in advance. :)

[YesNo]

Poetry is one way human beings use their subjectivity and language to create objects (poems) intending to give other human beings pleasure, both intellectually and emotionally.

It is related to literary prose which is another way for humans to use their subjectivity and language to give other human beings pleasure. It is related to a scientific paper which would be another way to do the same thing.