The Psychological Impact of Poetry

As a poet I have always wondered whether I can write poems that would have

the psychological depth that moves the reader of fiction? From the literary

perspective, depth poetry would require allusions to myths and/or to other

writers or poets so that the reader can associate the poetry with the references

without which the poem cannot maintain its ellipsis. Eliot's <<The Waste Land>>

which I analysed in my PhD thesis contains literary, ethnological (Fraser's

The Golden Bough), mythical, and historical references allowing us to imagine

clearly the decadence English society in the turmoil of the early 20's.

References to the mythical figures of Tiresias and Narcissus and those

to Christian saints whose lives Eliot had studied in Harvard, represent

anchors with which the readers can situate the setting, the action,

the descriptions, and the unfolding of the plot which the poet writes about.