Presented at the CiRCE Fall Regional Conference 2023.

There is an unbreakable connection between what we love and what we learn. Richard of St. Victor put it this way: “Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus”: where there is love, the eye is there also. Parents and educators must not only think of the truth, but the ways we are teaching our young charges to have affection for truth—to love it, to desire it, and to take delight in its many pleasures. Here’s the rub: knowledge is not always immediately pleasant, that is, if we teach the wrong kind of knowledge first. The Western tradition has long admitted different levels and types of knowledge. This dialogue will focus on “Poetic Knowledge,” the lowest but most indispensable form for conveying the love of truth. Matt Bianco and Thomas Fickley will discuss James Taylor’s book, Poetic Knowledge, Kenneth Graham’s classic, The Wind in the Willows, several apt poems, and the various ways poetic knowledge can be cultivated in the young and old alike.