This is why we stay with poetry. And despite our consenting to
aIl the indisputable technologies; despite seeing the political
leap that must be managed, the horror of hunger and ignorance, torture and massacre to be conquered, the full load of
knowledge to be tamed, the weight of every piece of machinery that we shall finally control, and the exhausting flashes as
we pass from one era to another-from forest to city, from
story to computer-at the bow there is still something we
now share: this murmur, cloud or rain or peaceful smoke. We
know ourselves as part and as crowd, in an unknown that
does not terrify. We cry our cry of poetry. Our boats are open,
and we sail them for everyone.
1. Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of relation. University of Michigan Press, 2024.