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You Must Change Your Life
Poetry, Philosophy, and the Birth of Sense
240 pages | 6 x 9 | 2002
ISBN 978-0-271-02228-4 | cloth: $54.95 sh
ISBN 978-0-271-03432-4 | paper: $24.95 sh
Buy the Kindle Edition
“An engaging exploration of the power of poetry, this book offers something new and refreshing: drawing thoughtfully on Heidegger’s approach to poetic language, Lysaker brings it into dialogue with the striking work of Charles Simic.” —Richard Polt, Xavier University
Some poems can change our lives; they lead us to look at the world through new eyes. In this book, inspired by Martin Heidegger—who found in poetry the most fundamental insights into the human condition—John Lysaker develops a concept of ur-poetry to explore philosophically how poetic language creates fresh meaning in our world and transforms the way in which we choose to live in it.
Not limited to a single poem or collection of poems, ur-poetry arises when, in the interaction of an author's principal tropes, the origin of poetry is exposed as a process whereby words with inherited meaning take on a new poetic life that draws our attention to the "birth of sense"—the manner in which the manifold realities that surround us are revealed. And it is precisely through an experience of the birth of sense that we are able to understand and dwell differently among these realities.
To demonstrate ur-poetry in action, the book frequently refers to such poets as Akhmatova, Ammons, Celan, Mandelstam, and Stevens, but it focuses on the work of Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic. By addressing the nature of human existence, the origins of sense, and the significance of history in and for human action, Lysaker argues that Simic's writing exemplifies the import that poetry can have for how we understand and live our lives.
John T. Lysaker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon.
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Engaging the Work of Art
Chapter One: Heidegger’s Ear
Chapter Two: Living Poetry
Chapter Three: The White of All "I’s"
Chapter Four: Ink, or the street of so many concealed felonies so pretty in the sunlight
Chapter Five: Characterizing the Cosmos
Chapter Six: Then Came History
Chapter Seven: Preserving the Possible
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index