Claudia Rankine (author of Citizen) recently wrote about the work of Adrienne Rich in the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/adrienne-richs-poetic-transformations

An excerpt:

In answer to the question “Does poetry play a role in social change?,” Adrienne Rich once answered:

Yes, where poetry is liberative language, connecting the fragments within us, connecting us to others like and unlike ourselves, replenishing our desire. . . . In poetry words can say more than they mean and mean more than they say. In a time of frontal assaults both on language and on human solidarity, poetry can remind us of all we are in danger of losing—disturb us, embolden us out of resignation.