In his 1844 essay “The Poet,” Ralph Waldo Emerson asked into a void: ‘Where is the great American poet?’ Where is “the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience?” …
In the final act of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” as Emily Webb resigns herself to her grave, she implores the Stage Manager: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” Initially, he responds with a …