Lately I’ve been thinking that poetry is useless.

I realize this is not a new idea, or a bold admission on my part; however, it’s become an urgent and depressingly repetitive thought in the last few years, so I felt compelled to write about it.

What is “useless”? It is “of no use.” It “does not serve the purpose or any purpose.” It is “unavailing.” It has no “useful qualities,” and it is “of no practical good.”

An online image search of “useless” yields the following: an illustration of a footless bunny rabbit staring down at a pair of red tennis shoes; a poster titled “Useless Talents,” featuring a man lying in the street, pulling a car by cables attached to his bottom eyelids; a cartoon featuring a bull wearing a bra that reads, “Useless as mammaries on a bovine”; a traffic sign with a human figure throwing something into a trashcan, with the text “useless” below it; a picture of a young student sitting at a desk, holding his hand up and asking, “…and this useless crap will be on the final?”