Nancy Huntting, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

The new issue of TRO presents in its title the most important question people have: “The World: How Should We See It?”  Mostly, people are not aware that they have this question, let alone how urgent it is—and also how beautiful. In this issue, you’ll see thrilling instances of Aesthetic Realism’s landmark principle “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.” You’ll learn, too, what in ourselves interferes with answering truly the questions of our lives. Knowledge that humanity thirsts for is in the current number of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical.

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is part two in our three-part serialization of a magnificent and definitive lecture that Eli Siegel gave in 1965. He titled it Poetry Is Concerned. And I’ll say a little about the title.

It’s generally agreed by now that anything in the world can be the subject of a poem. And that much it’s felt, however theoretically or dully, that poetry has to do with, is concerned with, anything and everything. But how is it concerned? And why does this matter?

Eli Siegel is the critic who explained that when poetry is the real thing, whatever may be its particular subject, it is always concerned too with something that can be called The World Itself, reality in its wholeness. Further, poetry is concerned with every human being, because in a true poem—and in all real art—there is a way of seeing that we need to have. We need to have the art way of seeing in order to respect ourselves, in order to have emotions and thoughts we’re proud of. Poetry concerns all our lives, and our lives concern poetry, because the seeing and feeling that are in a good poem are what we’re looking for in order to have our minds work with the scope, accuracy, logic, excitement, and depth we desire. The reason is given in this Aesthetic Realism principle: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”… Read more