Motive For Metaphor

This book can be thought of as a small anthology: each chapter a kind of meditation-on a poem, sometimes two; on poetry in general; on poetry & psychoanalysis; on thought itself. The poems are beautiful and would be even in the absence of discussion. But I hope the discussion will deepen the reader's appreciation of them. The chapters reflect the poems and poets that interested me or came across my consciousness over the years in which I was writing a column on poetry for the newsletter and for the Division/Review, both of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association. They follow no particular order and they can be read that way-in no particular order. I imagine the reader picking up the book, starting anywhere, thinking about both the poems and about the experience of psychoanalysis (as analyst or patient or both) and then putting the volume down to read some more on another day.I'm a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist and have been for thirty-five years. I'm also a poet. I hope the reader will find my writing pleasurable and alive and sensitive to the way meaning is made and transformed-in both arts.