Preventing death by history

Poetry is an antidote to the juggernaut of history that crushes individual narratives, especially of those who have no access to power. It is a vessel of immortality, to prevent death by history

At a reading in Colorado sometime early in this decade, poet Meena Alexander was confronted by an eternal question: “What use is poetry?” Recalling the incident in an essay, she wrote: “I caught my breath. She might have been Plato’s daughter asking me.” The effect that this incident had on the poet can be imagined from the fact that she referred to it again in a poem as well: “Her question, a woman in a sweatshirt, / Hand raised in a crowded room — / What use is poetry? / Above us, lights flickered, / Something wrong with the wiring.”

The