Before Felicity

Abstract

By the time I graduated high school, I had already been embraced by the transformative and therapeutic powers of poetry. I arrived at Hood determined to discover as much as I could about this mysterious force: Where does it come from? How do you skillfully produce it? What has it accomplished and what could it? And why has humanity been compelled to continue this tradition of word-smithing and soul-searching? The manuscript of poems I have constructed as a Tischer Scholar is a testament to that expedition. What I did not anticipate upon arriving at Hood was how infatuated I would become with philosophy and the significant role it would play in my understanding of poetic craft. Moreover, it nagged its way into my daily life after only one phenomenal course: Courage & Violence with Dr. Reichard. Soon I was thinking about Epictetus every time it rained, seeing Seneca every time I felt the stirrings of anger arising. Epicurus said “Vain is the word of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man,” and I found several who assisted me in some way, for which I am eternally grateful.