This book explores the deep, imaginative, and creative power of poetry as part of the human experience.  How poetry provides insight into human psychology is a question at the beginning of its theoretical development, and is a constant challenge for cultural psychologists and the humanities alike. Poetry functions, in all ages and cultures, as a rite that merges the beauty, truth and the unbearable conditions of existence.  Both the general and the particular can be found in its expression.  Collectively the authors aim to evoke a holistic understanding of what poetry conveys about decision making and the human search for meaning. This ground-breaking collection will be indispensable to scholars of clinical and theoretical psychology, philosophy, anthropology, literature, aesthetics and sociology.