Comments on: Political Poetry

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:43:42 +0000

D. Nurkse has a wonderful new poem called Ben Aden that was recently published in Field magazine. The poem is in the voice of an Iraqi who is being forced to dig his own grave at gunpoint. The gun is being held by an American soldier. One enchanting element of the poem is how the speaker is calm, and at peace emotionally, much more so than the twenty year-old soldier holding the gun.

By: Brian Hadd

Brian Hadd — Thu, 10 May 2007 15:49:03 +0000

Muldoon I guess, wrote something omitting Baghdad from battle Beginning B or whatever in "Horse Latitudes". Politics is gross. The Hood Company

By: emily warn

emily warn — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:24:29 +0000

“In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as ‘Profesor.’”
From Robert Pinksy’s poem on torture:
“Poem of Disconnected Parts” in Poetry, February 2006

By: Valerie Trueblood

Valerie Trueblood — Wed, 09 May 2007 18:06:28 +0000

My list would be too long; here are a few: John Haines (decades of beautiful, chilling poems about the drive for mastery and the fate of the mastered): http://www.archipelago.org/vol8-3/haines.htm C.K. Williams (whole books of political anguish) One of the latest: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/04/16/070416po_poem_williams and "War" (Not the short one on NJPoets but the long one in THE SINGING) Adrienne Rich's "The School Among the Ruins": http://www.poetsagainstwar.com/chapbook.asp#Rich August Kleinzahler's "Sunday Morning" (from GREEN SEES THINGS IN WAVES), about the dogs of the homeless. Alicia Ostriker's comical, savage "Fix" (from NO HEAVEN) about "the puzzled ones, the Americans."

By: Michelle Leclaire O'Neill

Michelle Leclaire O'Neill — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:46:58 +0000

Thankyou for your article on political poetry. It has been my style since the Vietnam War and continues to be. I have a body of political poetry, some of which I’ve read at local readings in Pacific Palisades. Of course,I am willing to share it in any way that is appropriate Michelle http://www.leclairemethod.com

By: Michelle Leclaire O'Neill

Michelle Leclaire O'Neill — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:46:58 +0000

By: Rachel Zucker

Rachel Zucker — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:23:26 +0000

I read at Bryant Park last night with Cathy Park Hong and Christian Hawkey. I read two political poems, “To Save America” and “Guantanamo.” It was a little scary and very exciting. I’ve been wanting to write and read poems like these for a long time.