The
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, drawn from Jungian psychology, groups people by
cognitive function, and the starkest contrast lies in two broad ways of gathering information: Sensing and Intuition.
Sensors―interested in facts―are good observers, focusing on the present, on facts, on what can be processed through the five senses; concrete, literal thinkers who value realism, common sense, and ideas with practical applications.
Intuitives--interested in frameworks--are introspective, looking for possibilities, patterns, impressions, imagination, reading between the lines. I test as high as possible on Intuition.
Neither is better than the other; however, the stronger the difference in cognitive style, the greater the tendency to disparage such a different way of seeing the world. I grew up in a family where both my parents and my older brother had a Sensing preference, so in spite of my good grades in school and college, I thought I had something missing until I was in graduate school in my thirties, where big picture thinking was a great asset and I learned about these cognitive differences. What a relief!
My deficit in the cognitive pathways of Sensors, however, continues to haunt me, most recently in a poetry workshop where we're learning to model our poems after Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux, the teacher, and former students--all writing "accessible, detail oriented, image-driven poetry," of course following poetic principles, but focused in tight on a moment that can be visualized. As excited as I've been to be involved again with a critique group, I was really struggling until I found an article about the Sensing/Intuition difference in creative writing.
Writers and
poets tend to be drawn toward creative work that matches their cognitive preferences and, of course, their own writing reflects their way of perceiving
the world.
Sensing Poets: Intuitive Poets:
are detailed, empirical, and concrete are abstract, symbolic, and figurative prefer plot-driven themes prefer concept-driven themes employ similes employ metaphors like to stay on-topic are comfortable with fracture tend to be explicit tend to be implicit tend to be linear and chronological are comfortable with split timelines prefer scenes to summary exposition use scenes as a jumping-off point to explore
larger themes point to what’s present to the eye bring to mind what’s absent from view They
ask: What happened? Were police
cars light or dark blue in Wichita in 1970? Does this stanza progress
logically line-to-line? They may
be wary of speculative leaps and abstractions in a poem. They
ask: What larger question about the human experience does this poem
explore? Which opposing forces create tension? They may look for hidden patterns between the lines
of a poem.
I can't change the wiring of my brain, but I can develop new neural pathways with practice, and because I want so much to learn this way of writing poems, I'm determined to give it my best effort.
