Poetry and Uncertainty

One frequent claim made on behalf of poetry is that in mediating between private and public, poems can enlarge our capacities for empathy, mutual respect, and shared commitment to the dignity of other people. But how, exactly, does poetry do this? While poetries of social critique and poems that confront violence and systemic oppression naturally come to mind, this talk will turn instead to poetry’s subtle capacities for cultivating uncertainty. From the simple, momentary suspension of judgment created by any line break to the aporias and paradoxes of figurative language, poems can move us toward lives of emotional complexity and openness toward others in unexpected ways.

Ted Mathys is the author of four collections of poetry including, most recently, Gold Cure (Coffee House Press, 2020). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, and his work has been recognized with the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s Cecil Hemley Memorial Award. His writing has appeared in a range of publications, such as American Poetry Review, BOMB, The Yale Review, Conjunctions, and Harvard Review. Originally from rural Ohio, Ted holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is an associate professor of English at Saint Louis University. In the community, he serves as a board member for the Saint Louis Poetry Center and is co-founder of the 100 Boots Poetry Series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.