Ezra Pound declared in The ABC of Reading that “melopoeia,” “phanopoeia,” and “logopoeia” are what form the musical, visual, and intellectual quality of poetic language, and essentially are what make a poem a poem. But as I was re-reading the Cantos in Richard Seiburth’s New Selected Poems and Translations of Ezra Pound I realized that there was a missing poeia – the “hypnopoeia” that forms the very structure of not only the Cantos but most epic poems. Hypnopoeia is the state of trance that the poet moves in and out of; it is what allows the reader to enter the mind of the poet and “see” what it is he or she is attempting to convey. As a poet and hypnotherapist, I am interested in how “poetic language” is applicable not only to poetry as an art form, but to the ways that language can work to suggestively effect a person’s thoughts (in a therapeutic context) through the art of hypnotherapy. This blog is in progress. Check back for my evolving ideas and specific realizations as I evolve into this exciting field of study and practice.
