Empirical poetics is the study of poetics through scientific research rather than theory. For example, the field of cognitive poetics, which addresses the neuroscience of the reader’s response, would fall under this definition. Our project will collect such research with two goals: the first is to defend the immanence, the existence, of poetry’s power through its basis in scientific fact, and the second is to collect prominent empirical poetics research for the benefit of likeminded people. The method of this project will be to survey the current research on psychological and physiological responses in poetry readers, then use these studies as evidence for a defense of the medium. We will collect and annotated research that addresses questions such as: how the body responds to or creates emotions, how/whether these responses are provoked during reading, how word-images are created in the brain, how sensations are understood, the role of metaphor in the creation of meaning, the emotional impression produced by different patterns of linguistic sound effects, and more. The resultant thesis paper will summarize the current trends in the empirical research of poetics, cross reference their results in hopes of forming an argument for the immanence of poetry, and finally, offer tentative predictions for future investigations into empirical poetics. Behind this project lies the belief that art is not the estranged bedfellow of science; the evidence of science proves the power of art.