Eliot & Dissociation

T. S. Eliot's big contribution to the world of literary criticism was his idea of dissociation.  He believed that poets should not express themselves within their poetry.  Their poetry should instead be a way of escaping their emotions.  They should compose without projecting their emotions into the lines.

Eliot also believed that all people carry the past with them.  The past is never truly gone.  So when a poet begins to write poetry and leaves his own emotions out of it, the past and the future can become a separate, artistic, thing.

I don't agree with this theory.  I think it would be difficult to compose a poem without allowing emotions to seep into it.  What is poetry if its not emotional?

I'm taking contemporary poetry this semester and already we have read several emotional poems.  Although I am not a big fan of poetry, I do enjoy the emotional ones - such as "Sleeping Beauty" by Ai.  This poem is very emotional!  Ai composed it after reading a newspaper article about a comatose woman becoming pregnant.  The woman had been raped multiple times by one of the nursing assistants.  Ai didn't know the woman personally, but was able to channel enough emotion to write a truly moving and eye-opening poem.  I'm not sure the poem would have very good had Ai not allowed emotions to fuel her lines.