This is written for your cousin, who died young. And... Yes, he was... Well, he grew up next door to me. We were the two kids that went to college. He had a brain tumor. But growing up, I saw him every day. So, we were like brothers. You know, I believe in a metaphysical realm of existence. Now, it could be external or it could be entirely internal. But I believe there's a continuity between the living and the dead. Americans tend to say you shouldn't think about death. Oh, that's morbid. But I don't think it's at all. I think it makes my life more interesting.
When he was a child, poet Dana Gioia's mother would come home from a long day of work and recite poems while she cleaned. It was a way, he realized later, for her to express the feelings she didn't want to describe directly, and to vent her sorrows without burdening her son. This, he believes, is what makes poetry so compelling: It's the secret language of emotions, a bit of magic that gets us through the day. Listen as Gioia speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about poems, mortality, and loved ones who died too young. Gioia also explains the fundamental role of allusions in poems, and how--if they’re really good--they have the power to summon the dead.