Who Says So?: Considering the roots of the life of freedom in poetry

“Tyrannical say-soing Gods both reflect and produce tyrannical say-soing humans” says the contemporary Irish philosopher William Desmond in God and the Between (page 256). Say-so? I say so. One of the blessings of poetry is the practice it gives us in experience at a remove from “because I say so.” Young people often become poets for just this reason. To become a good reader of poetry is to become skilled at a form of transcendence, a form which enables one to disregard tyrannical say-soing Gods.