What's the use of poetry? How can it be used? Many people are not used to poetry, or, at least, they think they aren't. I am not used to using poetry. I usually refuse to use it. Although in reality I am probably using it for some personal something—such as wanting to be a poet because my identity, somewhere along the line, got tied up with that. It's for feeling something. For thinking some feeling. Is intrinsic worth obsolete? What does deconstruction say about the material presence of the sign? About feeling? I should add that I do wish to be of use. I don't wish to be some good-for-nothing (on top of mediocre)writer. I do worry about people who have to break their own backs to make a living. But even people whose backs are breaking, especially people whose backs are breaking, maybe, need poetry. CEOs need poetry. Babies, traffic cops, loggers terrorists Republicans and the mentally ill. The dead, the dying, and the lying. Need poetry. Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed; sound of maximum piercing. But notice how I'm turning literature into religion again.