So when people say poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language–and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers–a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place. ~ Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?