“You can’t fix a car with poetry. Poetry won’t help you build that new app and make billions. It won’t win you an election. There are so many ways that poetry isn’t useful in the way we think of things as being useful. And yet…” The corners of her mouth turn up in the faintest smile. “We bring poems to read at weddings and funerals. We write them to lovers. When our lives have been burned down around us, we look for that single glowing ember remaining, and that’s a poem. Poetry is one of the highest artistic achievements of humankind.
