With his concept of the “hermeneutic circle,” philosopher Martin Heidegger emphasizes the ways in which understanding requires that we enter into the assumptions and the world of what is being understood. While this hermeneutical orientation can be applied to anything that calls for our understanding, I see it as particularly relevant for noticing the specific contribution that poetry offers as an interpretive tool and an illumination of human experience. In my project, I propose an understanding of poetry as a hermeneutic channel – that is, as an interpretive means for bringing initially distant, abstract philosophical ideas closer to the empathetic imagination of the poem’s audience. First, I lay out a framework of poetry as a hermeneutic channel by placing Heidegger in dialogue with the work of James Olthuis, who reaches beyond Heidegger in positing an explicitly interpersonal “hermeneutic spiral” that promises a mutually responsive “hermeneutics of connection,” rather than simply of “interpenetration.” I then use this poetic framework to engage in a close reading of M. NourbeSe Philip’s poem “She Tries Her Tongue: Her Silence Softly Breaks,” in which Philip draws the reader closer to her experience of cultural trauma and rehabilitation. I argue that Philip achieves this contact not by mere description, but by constructing poetic patterns that bring about a shared hermeneutic engagement through deliberately fragmented and looping language. In this way, Philip’s poem exemplifies how poetry itself counts as a form of philosophical expression and exploration, by showing how philosophical complexities are more intimately encountered through poetry’s distinctive affordances.