ABSTRACT

I would like to divide this paper into two parts. In the first, I want to think about what is involved in general in finding creative expression. What is going on when we write a poem or paint a picture, and what light does psychoanalysis shed on that? How might a poet address painful experience, such as having to confront approaching death? I will begin by looking at a couple of poems, not by me, which represent contrasting responses to this, and by considering with the reader what seems to work, and perhaps not work, in these poems.