“All over the world, where there is suffering, people are humming, singing, scribbling words to help them face the day. This act binds each of them together. It connects me with a woman in Zimbabwe, a man in Palestine, a woman in Peru, a man in Afghanistan. They are writing the history of our time — the human history of our time.

“The poet, then, is the one who devotes her time, her energy, her mind to find the language to capture most truthfully and accurately the human moment. We all need poets in our communities to give this to us. We need the poet, the weaver of language, to do this for us.”

More from Kwame Dawes at the South Carolina Poetry Initiative

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