I think she was drawing a distinction between words as they are spoken by politicians, which often are consequential in many ways, and words as they are used in poetry, where she seems to align with Auden's famous "poetry makes nothing happen" dictum. It's of little concern, though, since she is not running for Oxford Poetry Professor, but as the head of the party that opposes Republican book bans that often sweep poetry books from the shelves. And, to the extent that love of poetry is an issue in the race, I think that Kamala is far more likely than Trump to curl up in bed contentedly reading a copy of
Strong Feather.
By the way, a quick Google of Kamala and poetry brought up
this Facebook post from 2019. It seems that maybe she's not entirely illiterate after all.