About "political poems":
> He (Peter R) points out (I paraphrase) that you don't get
> the information straight in Keston's poem - you get it in a separate
> post. That's right, of course - and we might assume that if K had
> wanted to give us information about Mozambique (him being smart guy
> and all) he'd do so directly, wouldn't hang about writing tricky poems
> just to grab our attention first. Poems are notoriously poor vehicles
> for straight information - a good clear press release does it better
> every time.
This of course is based on the presumption that one does indeed get a
"good clear press release" in the first place. & that does presume
a democracy as "our" norm. In reputable newspapers in South Africa
under the state of emergency, political reports (say, for example, on the
presence of the SADF in Mozambique) would have certain passages blocked
out in black. This indicated that the newspaper had information which it
was not allowed to print under censorship regulations. ie. showing the
black block itself signified that there had been censorship, that it could
not report in full...
> The facts provide a ground for it, which Keston
> doesn't present. It'd be easy to say, oh, but without such a ground
> the poem is meaningless - but it simply ain't so. You hear what you
> hear, and make sense of it thus, and it relates back. And, I suspect
> Keston would add, if you don't have that factive ground, you jolly
> well should have. Don't try to make the author responsible for your
> ignorance.
>
It is not how I understand "political poetry". There are no facts before
poem. Under extreme regimes "factive ground" is prohibited. At best
blackblocked (yes it is there but you can't know about it) at worst erased
(there is no factive ground). Political poetry can be a tactic which helps
to disclose what is censored, or allude to the truth blanked out in those
"good clear press releases". Not through presenting facts, nor even
bearing witness to events, but through preparing for the "factive ground"
which you take for granted is available to everyone, but I would say only
available in democracies. Such poems may seem "tricky" because at that
historical moment there is no other way, no other choice, to write
disclosure. But because poems "are notoriously poor vehicles for straight
information" they may be precisely such excellent tactical forms
of resistance, dodging, shifting, & transporting people to seek out some
very unofficial knowledges...Yes, you hear what you hear. But not on the
radio.
But I wouldn't say that this was the historical condition under which
Keston labours.
Karlien.
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