The function of poetry

"In central Ohio, I met the town librarian of a small town; he has, he told me, on his own, started memorizing poems. What poems? I asked. Wallace Stevens and Jane Kenyon. Standing under the giant dusty cottonwoods in the town park, he recited Jane Kenyon's 'Happiness' to me. It was beautiful. Any practicing poet who believes that small ceremony of art was a fluke, or insignificant, or who thinks that Kenyon's poem isn't part of the tribal treasure, is fooling him- or herself. A little hardship, a little sickness, a little mourning, a little failure, a lost job or broken marriage will quickly clarify for us the function of poetry. Vale of tears, oh unreal city; dark world. Meet poetry." --Tony Hoagland