Defending Poetry . . . .

With sadness I learned yesterday of the death of poet Meena Alexander (1951-2018) -- not only a fine poet but also one of my treasured teachers during my MFA studies at Hunter a bunch of years ago.  As I browsed the works of Alexander online I found here in World Literature Today her essay "What Use Is Poetry?" which includes reference to Shelley's "In Defence of Poetry." 

     Shelley's words led me to think of mathematics; perhaps you will, too:
          “It creates for us a being within our being. 
           It makes us inhabitants of a world to which 
           the familiar world is a chaos. It reproduces 
           the common universe of which we are portions and percipients, 
           and it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity 
           which obscures from us the wonder of our being.”