Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.
Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the unexpected and, with luck, of the unexpectable.
So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.
By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives.
I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics.
Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.
Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.
Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.
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