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A Way of Seeing: Perception, Imagination, and Poetry
A Way of Seeing Perception Imagination and Poetry Author:John Allison We usually think of imagination as a fanciful, whimsical faculty that has little to do with reality and truth. This beautifully written little book by the Australian poet John Allison shows how ordinary imagination can be intensified to become an organ of cognitiona path of development to real knowing. He shows how poetrypoetic knowi... more »ng and seeingcan reveal aspects of the world unobtainable by science. Three lucid chapters describe the path to true imagination. Attention is the key. First we must practice it, then we must become aware of the processes involved in it. Learning to experience "poise," we must come to terms with the shadowall that says "No" in us. The combination of attention, equanimity, and assent opens the world in a new way. Having established his ground rules, Allison then examines how poets have actually developed and practiced the kind "deep seeing" that "image work" involves. For this he draws on Shakespeare, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Goethe, Novalis, Ruskin, Hopkins, Rilke, and Octavio Paz. The book concludes with a sequence of the authors own poems that exemplify the philosophy and practice he has been unfolding.« less