What Use Is Poetry?

by 

Meena Alexander

In an address to the Yale Political Union on April 23, 2013, Meena Alexander began with a line from Shelley’s 1821 essay, “A Defence of Poetry.” The resolution—“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”—led to a lively debate. What follows is a slightly revised version of the text she wrote for that occasion.

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2013/september/what-use-poetry-meena-alexander