Dana Joy: I was trying to think of the right metaphor for an enduring love. And I think it's language. When you love someone, when you spend a lifetime with someone, the two of you create a private language. But if you lose the person, who do you speak the language with?Joy: It reminded me of these California Indian tribes, which only have one or two living speakers. The lexicon of a lip and fingertip defies translation into common speech.
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.