"In a time of violence, the task of poetry is in some way to reconcile us to our world and to allow us a measure of tenderness and grace with which to exist. I believe this very deeply, and I see it as an effort to enter into the complications of the moment, even if they are violent; but through that, in some measure, poetry's task is to reconcile us to the world— not to accept it at face value or to assent to things that are wrong, but to reconcile one in a larger sense, to return us in love, the province of imagination, to the scope of our mortal lives."
— Meena Alexander, from What Use is Poetry