The introduction explores issues of obsession, diction, argument, abstraction, and the via negativa in poetry. The essay defends the notion of the generic lyric, as practiced by Rilke, Dickinson, and Plath, and argues that, while part of the tradition of the Romantics and the Imagists, the contemporary generic lyric is able to reinvent itself in surprising and compelling ways. How the Brain Grew Back Its Own History consists of short, image-driven lyrics whose central theme is the body. The collection uses the cellular process of death and regeneration to tell a kind of creation story.