“… it must be pointed out that the old adage about a poet’s role in, or his duty to, his society puts the entire issue upside down. If one can speak of the social function of somebody who is essentially self-employed, then the social function of a poet is writing, which he does not by society’s appointment but by his own volition. His only duty is to his language, that is, to write well. By writing, especially by writing well, in the language of his society, a poet takes a large step toward it. It is society’s job to meet him halfway, that is, to open his book and to read it.

If one can speak of any dereliction of duty here, it’s not on the part of the poet, for he keeps writing. Now, poetry is the supreme form of human locution in any culture. By failing to read or listen to poets, a society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation - of the politician, or the salesman, or the charlatan - in short, to its own. It forfeits, in other words, its own evolutionary potential, for what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. The charge frequently leveled against poetry - that it is difficult, obscure, hermetic, and whatnot - indicates not the state of poetry but, frankly, the rung of the evolutionary ladder on which society is stuck.”