I have often wished that my writing served a "Greater Goal", and that all poetry in fact served this highbrow aspiration. Or perhaps not quite so highbrow as I was once thinking. Poetry of the "Greater Goal" gets its hands dirty. It becomes unseparable from the subject it is considering. And then I really stop to consider poetry, feel its heft in my hand (like Ben Ayers does). I can't seem to grasp it completely, because it has so many damn edges. There's the social justice edge, the personal growth edge, the language politics edge, the literary theory edge, the beautiful, sorrowful, emotional edge, and so many, many more. "Throw away the lights, the definitions, And say of what you see in the dark That it is this or that is that, But do not use the rotted names." --Wallace Stevens These are the edges I slip on when I try to make poetry aspire to this "Greater Goal". "Poetry approaches, pauses, then skirts around us like a cat." --Barbara Kingsolver