Chapter 9: Poetic Instants in Daily Life: Towards the Inclusion of Vertical Time in Cultural Psychology

On two recent occasions, this Niels Bohr Lecture and a Cultural Psychology Conference, I posed these questions to the audience as an introduction to my presentations:

1. Have you ever experienced something “poetic”?

2. Have you ever read a poem?

3. Have you ever written a poem?

4. Have you ever struggled to put the “an experience” into words?

The purpose of such questions was to break the ice, connecting the audience with their personal experiences, and comprehending from these intimate feelings the theoretical implications I am still trying to develop in the field of cultural psychology. From my perspective, what happened in both cases was very meaningful, since there was an enthusiastic response from the audience in both instances.