[New-Poetry] "political poetry" (was new on wordstrumpet)

[Jeff Newberry]

Hi Rachel,

How are you defining political?  Do you mean broadly, as "of the people?"
Or perhaps "having to do with politics?"  Or perhaps "having to do with
politics with a slant toward one's own political party?"  Or perhaps, "not
private?"

I'm not being snarky.  I just wonder.  I've heard this line before, "All
poetry is political."  I suppose that depends on how you define "political."

I have a great interest in this debate(?).  Is poetry by nature
"political?"  Again, I suppose it depends on how you want to define
"political."  Is language "political?"  If you buy that line of thinking, I
suppose it is.  Of course, my great curse is that I always not only see but
also feel some sympathy for every side in a debate, be it political(!) or
private.

Best,

Jeff Newberry

On Jan 16, 2008 1:15 PM, Rachel Loden <r_loden at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Thanks, Tad --  and I was very intrigued by your post "A Low Dishonest
> Decade":
>
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/2008/01/low-dishonest-decade.html
>
> I agree with Forster, for the most part, but not with the usually astute
> Johnny Cash. Folk song and politics are inextricably mixed, unless we want
> to deep-six "This Land Is Your Land" or "Silver Dagger" just for example.
>
> It always makes me laugh when people say they're not interested in (what
> they like to call) "political poetry." Did they imagine there was another
> kind? Some fish don't see water, but they're swimming in it.
>
> On the other hand, I'm not much interested in what often *passes* for
> political poetry -- agitprop and sloganeering, I mean.
>
> Rachel
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: TheOldMole [mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:20 AM
> > To: r_loden at sbcglobal.net; NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry
> > News &amp; Views
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] new on wordstrumpet: nixon vets the
> > candidates &c.
> >
> > As a faithful wordstrumpeter, I had read this and loved it.
> >
> > Rachel Loden wrote:
> > >
> > >    http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
> > >
> > >
> > >     * How Would Nixon Vote? Tricky D. Vets the Candidates
> > >
> > >     * A Poem for Primaries: Milhous as King of the Ghosts
> > >
> > >     * The Moist Lotus Open Along Acheron: Sappho, psychopomp &c.
> > >
> > >     * The Important Looking Men (with a Note from Mairéard Byrne)
> > >
> > >     * Speechless: Woody Allen on the WGA strike; the
> > "right-to-sing" state
> > >
> > >     * Rose, Oh Pure Contradiction: Knox, Manguso & more
> > >
> > >     * The More Things Change Dept.: Some Remarks on Humor
> > by E.B. White
> > >
> > >     * Susan Sontag: An Argument about Beauty
> > >
> > >     * Concord in the Sixties: Hawthorne, the Alcotts, the Civil War
> > >
> > >      * Poetry and the Theory of Heartbreak
> > >
> > >     *  A Fresh Face, Somebody Who Understands: Nixon and Rumsfeld
> > >
> > >     *  My Wicked Caddywumpus Ways: Blurb-Composition &
> > other confusions
> > >
> > >     *  A Page from the Dangerfield Playbook: the Stephen T.
> > Colbert Award
> > > for the Literary Excellence
> > >
> > >     *  Poetry, Grimness, and Gallows Humor: Mlinko, Brecht,
> > Lerner, Flarf
> > > &c.
> > >
> > >     *  Adventures in Heresiology: Patrolling the Perimeter of the
> > > Avant-garde
> > >
> > >     *  Academy of Fine Arts: Linh Dinh by Jonathan Hill
> > >
> > >     *  Poem in Spanish (with a Note from Paul Hoover)
> > >
> > >     *  M. A. Numminen Sings Wittgenstein
> > >
> > >      http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Tad Richards
> > http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> > http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
> >
> > The moral is this: in American verse,
> > The better you are, the pay is worse.
> >   --Corey Ford
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
"Memory believes before knowing remembers.  Believes longer than recollects,
longer than knowing even wonders."
—William Faulkner, Light in August


http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080116/108275df/attachment.html