Every society we’ve ever known has had poetry, and should the day come that poetry suddenly disappears in the morning, someone, somewhere, will reinvent it by evening.
Since ancient times, as long as we’ve had language, poetry has ritualized human life. It has dramatized and informed us with metaphors and figures of feeling and thought, mysteries and politics, birth and death, and all the occasions we experience between womb and tomb.
Poetic utterance ritualizes how we come to knowledge. In the same way that poems illuminate our individual lives, poems also help us understand ourselves as a culture. Or at least they spur us to ask the questions. Poetic utterance mythologizes our journey of being. Poetic utterance tells and interprets our stories. Poetic utterance shapes our perspective of the mysteries of the present moment and helps us imagine the next one.
Poems Hold the Mysteries of the Present, Dreams of the Future
by David Biespiel
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/18/does-poetry-matter/poems-hold-the-mysteries-of-the-present-dreams-of-the-future
Does poetry matter? Yes. Can poetry be more relevant? No. It is the song of song, the language of language, the utterance of utterance and the spirit of spirit.