I think
the poet who didn’t feel the pressure
at a politically difficult time
would be either
stupid or
insensitive. …
Debate doesn’t really change things.
It gets you bogged in deeper.
If you can address or reopen the subject with something new, something from a different angle,
then there is some hope.
…
People are suddenly gazing
at something else and
pausing
for a moment.
And for the duration of that gaze and pause,
they are like
reflectors
of the totality
of their own knowledge
and/or ignorance.
That’s something poetry can do for you,
it can
entrance you
for a moment
above the pool
of your own consciousness and
your own
possibilities.
(Seamus Heaney in an interview in The Paris Review)