But are the poems you mention, Ian, effecting political change? The obvious answer is that they are not. This is the point Robert Archambeu is making in the blog post that inspired this thread.
You say that the best political poetry “doesn't try to persuade me of anything”, this may be true of the best, but it doesn’t address the question Archambeu is making regarding the claims that Cambridge poetry is effecting political change.
The hesitancy you note in Prynne’s Refuse Collection suggests that he is, perhaps, aware that such poetry is best read philosophically rather than as manifestos or a call to arms.
Original Message
Poetry and politics do seem inextricably and sometimes inexplicably intertwined. The best political poetry, to me, seems to be that that doesn't try to persuade me of anything, that abandons rhetoric as quickly as it can use it, and that undercuts its own position.
So Prynne in Refuse Collection (on the barque website) is against war but never allows the poem the comfort of an anti war position. And Sean Bonney in Commons (available on the web) is similarly restless, (Commons is a great poem and if you haven't already read it, read it). Andrea Brady's wildfire, also up on the web, has been mentioned. And then almost from another tack Lee Harwood's constant sliding off from a position as a judgement on the illusionary quality of clarity. Those lapses into silence.
And Pound, sure, but what about Muriel Rukeyser's work from the 1930s, or Aime Cesaire's Notebook, or Langston Hughes' Montage to see that modernist experimentation wasn't necessarily right wing, or male or white. And Frank O'Hara's work is deeply political and concerned not just with politics of sexuality but also of race and power.
It's early, the sun is up, and there must be something else to do.
Ian
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