‘Art Is Not a Mirror Held Up to Society, but a Hammer with Which to SHAPE It’

A rhyme’s…
a barrel of dynamite.
A line is a fuse
that’s lit.
The line smolders,
the rhyme explodes –
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.

Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it

(I can’t recall where the photo is from.)

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Soviet poet