Quotes from Cassie Premo Steele

To witness means to decide to participate—not only with the head but with the heart—in the experience of another, an experience so painful that it must be shared in order to be confronted. Those in positions of power in our society have a tremendous ability to bring others from pain to possibility. And the beginning lies in poetry, for poetry provides distinctive access to pain. ?

Thus, melancholia arises when there is failure to recognize the traumatic nature of the wound causing pain.