Philosophy and poetry are hardly strangers. But what exactly are they?
We aren't sure, but we want to test a hunch: that they can be collaborators.
Poetry is attuned to questions of form, and the potential of form to enable the exploration of subject matters in creative, surprising, and even unsettling ways. Under the banner of poetry, one may explore questions and thoughts that may be difficult or impossible to capture in any other genre. We might think of these questions and thoughts as occupying the boundaries of what is currently formulable or comprehensible.
These boundaries are of interest to metaphysicians. Enquiry in the best traditions of analytic metaphysics challenges assumptions about what is ‘obvious’, ‘intuitive’, or ‘normal’, investigating whether they might turn out be the upshot of preconceptions, specific social contexts, and other influences. In some intriguingly parallel ways, poetry makes room for, and celebrates, the unexpected and unsettling: it is an arena in which what seems ‘obvious’, ‘intuitive’, or ‘normal’ can and should be subverted.
Hence our hunch that metaphysicians and poets stand to benefit from each others’ experience and expertise in the pursuit of shared goals: discovering the edges of what strikes us as ‘obvious’ and exploring what happens beyond them.
Earlier this year we ran a call for guest post submissions to the blog; many thanks to all who contributed! Now we are running a new experiment: we are opening the blog to poetry submissions.
Poems can be in any style and of any length. What we're looking for is simply: poetry that makes us think something new about romantic love.
We'll consider up to 3 poems per submitter; these should not be previously published (except on personal websites or blogs). Please send submissions as email attachments to themetaphysicsoflove@gmail.com, with the subject line: "Poetry Submission". If you'd want us to include a bio in the event of publishing your poem, feel free to send one in the body of your email.
Submissions are open until October 31st 2014, though we'll start posting sooner if we receive anything that absolutely cannot wait! We'll select a maximum of five poems for publication here over the course of this experiment, and all final selections will be made by Vancouver poet and Metaphysics of Love Project collaborator Ray Hsu.