Is Poetry An Escape From Responsibility?

"Not at all," says D. A. Powell:

It is a place where messages of great value and import can be woven in, like the hidden but not-so-hidden calls to freedom and safety that are found throughout the lyrics of spirituals. When enslaved Americans sang “Wade in the Water,” it wasn’t merely about baptism, it was a call to escape captivity by hiding near the river, to cover one’s tracks by stepping into the current where the scent of the runagate or fugitive could be masked from the pursuing hounds. For me poetry has always been a place to put the most urgent messages of existence, because they can pass through undetected. The urgent message can hide in plain sight.