Krystal Languell : part five

Why is poetry important?

 

I struggle with this question sometimes. At its best, poetry is about connection through imagination, and can also give readers the experience of recognition—what today we call “feeling seen.” I think Muriel Rukeyser’s “(I lived in the first century of world wars)” nails it, though: “We would try by any means / To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, / To let go the means, to wake.”