Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. Audre Lorde, "Poetry is not a Luxury," Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, Ca: The Crossing Press, 1984), p. 38.