Podcasts Culture Point of Inquiry Jennifer Michael Hecht on the Power of Poetry and the Weirdness of Existence

Jennifer Michael Hecht on the Power of Poetry and the Weirdness of Existence

Published: April 14, 2023, 2:31 p.m.

\u201cMany of us who are happy to live outside religion still suffer from a lack of things religion gives its members,\u201d writes historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht. \u201cIt seems to me the remedy to this suffering is a shift in the way we think about ritual and the poetry of our lives.\u201d

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Hecht is our guest on this episode of Point of Inquiry. She\u2019s the author of books such as Doubt: A History, The Happiness Myth, and Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It. Her most recent book is The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of our Lives. In it, she shows us how encounters with poems can help us get through our toughest moments, enrich our celebrations, and cultivate a sense of awe and meaning\u2014all without appeals to the supernatural. In a conversation with Free Inquiry editor Paul Fidalgo, Hecht discusses how poems offer all of us\u2014secular and religious alike\u2014a way to think and feel more deeply, and provide us with a foundation for ritual to mark the milestones of life.\xa0


And keep an eye out for the June/July 2023 issue of Free Inquiry magazine, which will feature an excerpt from The Wonder Paradox: \u201cOn Choosing a Code to Live By.\u201d