Poetry and emotion

This chapter describes the ways that poetic forms can create intimate relations—socially salient relations—between people and languages. Using examples from recent work in the ethnography of poetry, this chapter explores the affective bonds—the intuitive senses of consubstantiality—between poetic form and individuals. Discussion concerns questions of the intimacies of grammar, ordeals of languages, and poetic communion. The question, then, is not how does poetry evoke emotions writ large, but rather, how do poetic forms in and through poetry evoke and convoke emotional connections to and of languages? Convoke a sense of communion or sociability.