from a brief article by Ray Waddle in The Tennessean:

Poetry feeds the soul, people say. What on earth does that mean? Poetry offers what a soul hungers for in times of stress and bewilderment — precision, alertness to beauty and poverty, fury, honesty, renewal.

Society now is networked, connected, stressed. We elect politicians to fix government, and Washington is now more impotent than ever.

A culture that still respects the silent spaces needed for poetry (or walking or praying) still believes in the soul, its desire for adventure, its power to transform individuals and even public life. It sounds absurd to say poetry can save the republic. It’s outrageous enough, these days, to be true.

Columnist Ray Waddle is a former Tennessean religion editor who lived in Nashville 20 years. Now based in Connecticut, he can be reached at ray@raywaddle.com.

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It sounds a little hokey, but I believe it, and agree with it.