Poetry and 'Things Hard for Thought'4

In an obituary for Ernest Jones, D. W. Winnicott (1958) spoke of his early brilliance as a medical student and went on to remark: 'One wonders what would have happened if Jones had not met Freud's works. Is it possible that he would have exploited his intellectual capacity, and lost touch with the ordinary matters of feeling?' 'Ordinary matters of feeling': it is clear in this context that ordinary does not mean commonplace but common, widespread, and central to the life and development of every human being—the common stuff, in fact, of our everyday living, the material of much of our gossip and of all significant literature. It is also clear from their published writings that both Jones and Winnicott, like all psychoanalysts, knew that these ordinary matters could express themselves in rather complicated—one might say, extraordinary—ways, some that result in defensiveness and distorition, some at least struggling towards real engagement and enjoyment. Since Ernest Jones (1959) believed that psychoanalysis is 'a focal point where all the varied activities of the human mind come together' (p. 14); since he also stated that 'the art of drama is second only to that of poetry in providing material for the study of the emotions, which play such an important part in the dynamic psychology to which my life has been devoted' (p. 76); it seemed to me that on this centennial occasion I might appropriately direct attention to some of the things that poetry can do in revealing, making available for the life of the mind, ordinary matters of feeling that are otherwise difficult to come by—those things har