I agree that many of the most profoundly political
poems don't have overt political agendas, or employ
persuasive rhetoric. At least that's how I taught the
otherwise namby-pampy bits of Lyrical Ballads this
morning.
But to go back to the original question, I would argue
that Tony Harrison's "A Cold Coming," published 18
March 1991 in The Guardian is an effective political
poem, capable of persuading readers of that newspaper
who might have been leaning towards war justification
(all the Adolph stuff), or who were beings seduced by
the Scud Stud on CNN and the techno-cool that the 1st
Gulf War was an evil.
David Latane
http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
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