The ecstatic poetic tradition connects many cultures and also reaches across vast stretches of time, influencing a considerable number of poets throughout history. Wild Poets of Ecstasy broadly represents this tradition, bringing together ancient and modern poetry from the world’s literary treasuries. Containing poems from over 100 secular and religious writers, this anthology is a sustained celebration of human beings in their best moments- the soul at the white heat, to use Emily Dickinson’s line. The selections praise the goodness of life, the abundance of nature, and the intimate interrelation of the whole cosmos. They also affirm the value of happiness, human connections, festivities, sexuality, and relatedness to the divine. Wild Poets of Ecstasy generously offers a cornucopia of poems depicting peak states of being and positive, life-affirming emotions, such as serenity, awe, wonder, rapture, gratitude, and love. In an insightful and compellingly readable introduction, D.J. Moores accounts for the enduring appeal of ecstatic verse in a cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary discussion of ecstasy in its many contexts. Ecstasy is relevant not only as a valuable psychological state but also as a major social issue, an interesting historical problem, and the informing spirit of the arts and religion. The ecstatic tradition, as he demonstrates, haunts the contemporary era as the specter of human fulfillment. Endorsements Can an anthology of poetry be called a ‘breakthrough’? This one is. For over a century, canonical literature in general and poetry in particular have been prisoners of an academic posture which elevates the voices of despair, depression, and alienation to high culture, and relegates those of optimism, joy, and well-being to the superficial and ill-informed. D.J. Moores, in a courageous departure from this convention, has crafted a soaring collection of exuberant, joyful, and ecstatic verse. The general reader must be grateful to him for envisioning nothing less than a ‘Positive Humanities.’ MARTIN SELIGMAN, Fox Leadership, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former President of the American Psychological Association While teaching Dante’s Paradiso, I kidded the class that I was done with ‘critique.’ I wanted to take up ‘Paradise Studies.’ This anthology is a lot closer than I thought scholarship and good taste were likely to come to such studies. Its rendering of the varieties of ecstatic experience is as thrilling as it is informative. CHARLES ALTIERI, Professor of English at the University of California-Berkeley and author of The Particulars of Rapture Sometimes both ordinary language and the language of science fail to capture what we experience, what we want to say, to speak of or about. So it is with ecstatic experience. D.J. Moores has given us a treasure trove, a book meant for grazing, for feeling one’s way into the poetic language in which, near as we can, commonplace experiences of unusual positive states of mind can be met, evoked, recalled, and valued in the ways they deserve in a rich, meaningful human life. OWEN FLANAGAN, James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Neurobiology at Duke University, former President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and author of The Nature of Consciousness
