ABSTRACT
If imagination is the spark that ignites the possible, then aesthetic experience is imagination’s tinder box. When I read Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas or Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, I compare the societal constraints on women with those of my own time and understand more clearly what possibilities exist in my life. When I listen to Ofra Harnoy play a Vivaldi cello concerto, my body responds to her music and clears the way for an imaginative response through poetry. When I encounter Emily Carr’s painting, Blue Sky, I find myself in conversation with the artist, learning more about who I am through my engagement with her work. My work as a writer and a teacher depends on this kind of imaginative possibility.
