During my twenties and thirties, my interest in the political poem increased as my apparent access to it declined. I sensed resistances around me. I was married; I lived in a suburb; I had small children.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.
My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time.
A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.
My art and poetry is very political now. Because you've got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen.
Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives.
My sense of politics and justice was deeply shaped in adolescence by my involvement with the underground punk - rock scene, and though lots of social and political issues had come forth in my comics, it wasn't until my late 20s that I felt properly equipped to address certain issues of race, power, and violence in my work.
A poem I write is not just about me; it is about national identity, not just regional but national, the history of people in relation to other people. I reach for these outward stories to make sense of my own life, and how my story intersects with a larger public history.
The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.
In my life, I've seen enormous increase in the consumption of poetry. When I was young, there were virtually no poetry readings.
In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.