At this juncture, I wish to defend the wordless--the mute act, which proves itself without speech, which declares and insinuates in silence, and is stamped on memory. Even in concern for poetry, we realize the life of the unspoken. It appears today as a look from one; the slow turning of the body of another, filled with recognition; the stroke of the club, brought down on the head of the man in the subway; the uninterrupted fall of the boy, leaping to safety before a height of fire; the announcement of this body in the stiffness and discolor of death; the bend of the child's head, seeing for the first time roses.

--Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry