The Dead Poets Society Ventures Into a Radioactive Analytic Space

In preliterate societies, the poet is the one assigned by the culture to be The One Who Remembers. As the bearer of this terribly important responsibility, the poet remembers the events of yesterday and today out of a deep and sacred respect for the ways of others; helps her or his people make sense of the lives they are living; and provides for those of tomorrow a sense of continuity with the ways and traditions of yesterday (Citino, 2002). In such preliterate societies, the poet is The One Who Remembers as a historian, myth-maker, and shaman. The poet is the historian who keeps the oral traditions and tells the tribal stories; the myth-maker who weaves the mythologies of the culture through graphic paintings, drama, and theatrical performances; and the shaman who, as the tribal witch doctor, calls upon the spirit world to cure illness. And as Shaman, the poet

is one who knows that there is more to be seen of reality than the waking eye sees. Besides our eyes of flesh, there are eyes of fire that burn through the ordinariness of the world and perceive the wonders and terrors beyond. In the superconsciousness of the shaman, nothing is simply a dead object, a stupid creature; rather, all the things of this earth are swayed by sacred meanings. (Rozak, 1995, p. 248; italics added)

Does the analyst see the world, people, and life through such eyes of fire? Does he or she see sacred meanings in the stupid