There’s Thrift in Heaven

About the Book

To be fully free, we must make informed choices at the level of framing as we sift imagery into experience. The deeply figurative nature of poetry allows us to compare alternative framings in an abundance that is unavailable in declarative speech, where lines of reference are exclusive. . In addition, in imitating our own mind's movements, poetry lets us start to name them, thereby expanding the reach of comparison and choice within. This book looks at the relation among freedom, poetry, and informed choice. It also explores how poetry can endure through the depth and abundance of its framing demonstrations. Poetry can • Demonstrate framing processes that, by reordering, reveal long-hidden features and extend our visible domain. • Build the comparative skills that increase choice across domains • Reflect and trace our current framing processes • Fortify us against manipulative influence

About the Author

Elizabeth Coons is an independent scholar who seeks to find out whether “great” or enduring poetry endures in part because it performs cognitive services that we need both to survive and to be free. For the past ten years, her “day job” has entailed technical and medical writing. With added study, she qualified and works as an editor in the life sciences. Throughout her professional life, she has been a member and later an officer of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars and its local predecessor (the Alliance of Independent Scholars in Cambridge, Massachusetts). Elizabeth also belongs to the American Medical Writers Association, the Unitarian Universalist History Society (UUHS), the Union of Concerned Scientists, an active UU church, and the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences. She enjoys creative nonfiction, 18th-century rhetoric, running, swimming, choral singing, and running a household of busy people and two busy cats.