perceptively.”1 He adds that the concern of poetry “is not to arrive at a definition and to close the book, but to arrive at an experience.”2 For that reason, according to Ciardi, the reader of poetry should not ask, “What does a poem mean?” but rather, “How does a poem mean?” Poetry is not merely expressive: it is expression. Poems, that is, do not merely talk about love or passion or emotion: they are the very sound of love, of passion, of emotion. Because the psalms are the poetry of faith, they