Poetry matters because words matter. Words matter because they are to civilized life what air is to a healthy body. Without language the tendons that connect people to people, community to community, time to time would dissolve into a complete collapse of order and meaning.  The ancient story of the Tower of Babel continues to insist on this truth with warnings of grave consequences should the lesson be ignored or forgotten.  Even now as technology introduces language generated by computers, it is still warm creative human language that lays the programming foundation that directs the computers to "talk" to us.  If ever the human voice should cease, no matter what manner of artificially intelligent language there be, the world's descent into a next dark age will quickly follow.  Poetry remains a vital force that guards and nurtures the human voice in the world, caring for it in a slow, loving, and highly particular way.  Every word, sound, stress, line, image counts.  Every poem is a new creation that flushes fresh life into old cracks and crevices, reviving teetering words and recommending new combinations, fresh images, deeper layers of nuance and meaning.  Poetry adamantly holds tradition and innovation together, congruent with the living nature of language itself. It provides a quiet cellular invigoration to 21st century life.  The poets are every where around the world, driven to work, not well known, yielding little power, "making nothing happen," unsung heroes quietly holding the world together one beloved word at at time.