the question posed for funding

1
can
poetry matter

to
which
someone important wrote an essay
posing
responding to the question

and
because it does

verse writing
with the verse-thinking come before
and
in the process
is important

otherwise
we’re left with quadrupeds for horses and
also
without
the Pegasus in modern times

and
yet
there are prosaic aspects as well
the straightforward issues
dealt with
directly
‘cause
verse helps with that

even
a genre to it

and though
we’re not the monarchs of the metaphor
we are the stewards
in
the realm of work

with something of our syntax going
overall with grammar in the poem
to offer clarity
agreed
upon
if by a formlessness in art as well

2
maybe imagine wordless
songs

or nothing to impact a speech
with
such as
the surly bonds of Earth
and
so
poetry
serves
with power like jet planes’ announcements
by Mach bursts
that heard

pressing the sky as music invocations
in
the service as
they sounded with Cold War beats
back then

3
to say things without saying
and
to say again
even so a nation might be following
also changing
like seas

rhyme
meter

provide accompaniment
to all that’s
said
addressing the five senses
in
their import
plus all the added senses at which
poems might be
guessing

4
for all impulses
instincts
and
directions over and inside
our Earth

c l couch


“Can Poetry Matter?” is an essay later developed into a book by Dana Gioia

the quadruped for horse is argued in Hard Times by Charles Dickens

the parts "have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . to touch the face of God" are from “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Junior--recited by the President during the Challenger memorial

photo is by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash