[from the UK blog 'Metaroar', July 20th 2007]:
Q: What do you see as the role of poetry in society (Aus and global), if any?
Jill Jones: Poetry is a social thing, but I don’t think of it as having a ‘role in society’. Maybe I should. Poetry does things with language, language is important. Perhaps poetry’s role is to be resistant. And to refresh language. Lively it up! Stop it corroding. But now that makes it sound like a product, for polishing language. It is language work, something you do, not use.
David Prater: Poetry provides a way of talking about things that is at once familiar and strange. Poetry was not invented especially for funerals, I suppose, but it’s amazing how well suited it is to these occasions. It also provides words to put on greeting cards. Sometimes I fail to see what role poetry has, other than to keep poets sane.
Paul Hardacre: On a cynical day, I would say that poetry is an almost irrelevant sideshow to the grotesque daily carnival of despair rooted in banal consumerism, media manipulation and perpetual warfare.
On a less cynical day, I would say that poetry acts to remind us all of the true essence of the human condition, and the mysteries of life. It’s a kind of conserve which, for the most part, sits overlooked on a dusty shelf, that we can eventually break out and savour when the madness that is this Age of Iron passes. So its role is a preservative one.
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