I like the way Douglas Oliver ends an intelligent post by bringing tradition
into the picture. <<if poetry has a long history of doing X or Y, let's not
say it can no longer do that.>>

Can we talk more about that, in terms of political poetry? What is the
tradition—-how far back it be traced? Does it taper off into vagueness and
controversy today? Why? What CAN it do?

I’ve cited the Auden lines before, mostly as a counter to people who think
that the poem begins with "poetry makes" and ends with "happen," leaving
"nothing" as the substantial middle and keyword to a rather blasé dictum.

But I didn’t read Douglas’ post disagreeing with Auden, nor with Jon
Corellis, nor, for that matter, with Noam Chomsky. Chomsky, often accused of
having no solutions to impose, is only off in his ideas of what an
"audience" (in this case to poetry) might be. If an artist is telling the
"truth" (about an injustice or not), then the artist is doing his/her job.
But can truth be accurately aimed, like a wad of spit?

Douglas wrote: <<The better political poem of today seeks to impose no
solution, but just to se as fresh an eye as possible. It makes us see things
unexpectedly.>>

And, from Auden (for context): <<it [poetry] survives/ In the valley of its
saying where executives/ Would never want to tamper, it flows south/ From
ranches of isolation and busy griefs,/ Raw towns that we believe and die
in; it survives,/ A way of happening, a mouth.>>

These lines remind me of every person who has ever said that a
spoon-moon-june poem can be just as politically powerful (and probably more
so) than the fiercest of so-called political poems (FM Ford & K. Rexroth
come to mind).

Poetry is not advertising/marketing. It affects readers in ways never to be
known, certainly not by the poet. Unless the reader carries certain poems on
his/her person next to a firearm intended for use. (This is part of the
history of poetry, no?) A disastrous result to be sure. Soldiers with Yeats
poems pinned to their coats; an assassin with Salinger in his pocket, or
transmuted images of TAXI DRIVER replaying in his brain. What else?

Audiences make things happen; poetry, nothing. (?) But can poetry can
make audiences happen.

And when Douglas writes <<Chomsky's definition that poetry's audience has to
be the group that makes the political change actually happen>> I have to
disagree—not with the sentiment, but with the interpretation. Poetry, as
Zukofsky said, can inform. It can, as Douglas himself writes <<find some
way, free of rant, to make vivid the issue itself>>. Chomsky’s is not
necessarily a call for action; an informed populace can affect policy in
many ways. His works stress this again and again.

Poetry as a "political force" seems to imply that a receptive & eager
audience would be willing to vote or revolt at the drop of hat, or
publication of a chapbook. You are aware that it is more complicated than
that. Let’s talk about that.

It is supposed that the Mexican gov’t has withheld from enacting mass
slaughter in the Chiapas because the world has it’s "eye" on it. The
American eye is half shut, if not more so; this is apparent. Still, I am
convinced that the press is not to be relied on for integrity. From poetry,
however, I expect integrity. Is this naïve? Could one good poem that makes
this particular issue vivid supplant a year’s worth of news coverage? If so,
that’s good enough.

-daniel bouchard


<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Daniel Bouchard
The MIT Press Journals
Five Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142

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phone: 617.258.0588
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