Poetry is not written out of despair, which in its pure form is absolutely mute. The poetry that seems to come out of despair - Larkin's "Aubade," for instance, late Plath - is actually a means of staving it off. A negative charge, simply by virtue of realizing itself, of coming into existence, becomes a positive charge. Whole lives happen this way, sustained by art in which, at some deep level, life is denied. There can be real courage in such lives and art, though it is very easy to move from engaging despair to treasuring it, to slip from necessity into addiction. This is when poetry's powers begin to fail.

-Christian Wiman, "Notes on Poetry and Religion"