Poetic rigor for a toughminded psychology

Abstract

As the public#shsocial life of the culture has come to be founded on paradigmatic images from the social sciences, especially psychology, poetic images have been cast into disrepute. However, a presentation of poems by the contemporary American poet, A.R.. Ammons, reveals that fine poetry deserves to be called “rigorous.” His work exemplifies a willingness to face up to the terms of existence and to use language to mean what one says and to mean well. Mainstream psychology strategically opposes that kind of rigor, a point underscored by education students’ psychologized analyses of a teaching problem. It is concluded that a psychology not founded on romanticism is too impractical and too cynical to function authoritatively.