Comments on: Why are poets aligned with the left?

By: Steve Tills

Steve Tills — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:21:28 +0000

Ditto, Henry!
And Thank you and All for Great Conversation. It’s a fabulous range of topics and I think that our generation(s) will be (rightly and smartly) continuing to explore it/them for some time.
Ciao, Steve

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:37:46 +0000

I pretty much agree with you, Steve. I was just trying to answer Lucia’s question. Several other commenters here were trying to question the basis of her question. That’s fine too. Happy 4th of July.

By: Steve Tills

Steve Tills — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:14:53 +0000

Henry,
Re: “politically centrist,”
If poetry is the antithesis of politics, then aren’t most very good pomers’ politics Not paraphasable,
the “particulars” of their politics always and ever, at least Ideally, Not Reducible to any party, any subscription, and permanent locating on any outside continuum?
If very good poets (i.e., ANYbody thinking, poming, really well in the moment) regard each and every politicizable (sorry, no time to speel coreckly just know) particular of human and earthly experience (including the “abstract” and the imaginary) special to its own Being. With CARE. With “love.” With Heart. With,
oh fuck you Steve — yer getting AWFULly sentimental and cliche, yep.
Seriously, though, we should not spend a lot of time categorizing our thinking, politics, etc.
Seriously, poming should should shoulda coulda woulda be “outside of” political USE, definition…
Seriously, now that would be divinely “liberal,” wouldn’t it? Pomers smashing politics to peaces.
Okay, nuff sad, sed, Sudafed-head.
P.S. And this is completely off subject, sorta, but anybody ever read Emerson’s great essay about
“liberalism” and “conservatism?” It’s not (exactly) the same “liberalism” we’re talking about here. It’s more a very rational and reasonable respect for the equally indispensable human qualities, human potentials, ideals, liberalism and conservatism.

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:55:06 +0000

Henry, I don’t deny that it’s possible to be centrist. & I’m pretty sure that one my main points has been that, contra Lucia’s suggestion (which I recognize was tongue-in-cheek), you don’t arrive at any particular political position by “thinking” your way to the “truth.” In fact, it’s liberalism whose adherents assume if you don’t think like they do you don’t think. I’m pretty sure insisting on a distinction between “left” & “liberal,” whose importance Lydia has nicely articulated, is simply a socio-historical matter, no more a question of “thinking like I do” than if someone had conflated fascism & communism & their error were pointed out. Luckily, I am surrounded by friends & colleagues whose political affinities range widely, including some on the (to employ another completely misused term) libertarian right. It’s liberals who have arrived at the splendor of the self-evident truth of history, & shake their heads in wonder that past artists they admire could have had such boneheaded ideas. Do I think I’m right? Sure — just like everybody else. That doesn’t prove a thing about what I think people who don’t think like I do think.
Steve! You shame me, & I thank you. But let it be said that I never claimed to be consistent. & yes, “management of widow burning” (the working title of my manuscript) is lifted from Spivak’s work on Indian subalternity.
Peace & poetry to all, fer shizzle,
mr

By: Doodle

Doodle — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:24:12 +0000

Some of this, let’s face it, is a little épater le bourgeois. But… yes, what Lydia said.

By: Steve Tills

Steve Tills — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:14:02 +0000

http://www.lapetitezine.org/Michael.Robbins.htm
Well, I mean, for example, these lines from “Favorite zoo animal,” one of your poems, some of your poming, at lapetitezine.org. Only gotta read a coupla lines to know that I like it, your sensibilities:
The reword, and “funnin,” of Marx; the “why’s it Arkansas oh okay that’s cool” and then the neat “surprise” at the end with “maple porn” [my emphasis]; “velcro of small things” and certifying them, yeah, neat, and of course I’ve worn velcro golf clubs for 38 years; “Management of Widow Burning” may have been “a found poem,” or it’s Indian, where I think they still “burn brides,” so the good “feminism” (now, C’MON, MICHAEL, TELL ME THAT’S NOT “SOCIAL” AND TELL ME THAT ANY ABLE-MINDED YOUNG MAN OR WOMAN READING IT DOESN’T GET AT LEAST A LITTLE TINY FLICKER OF REINFORCEMENT FOR COURAGE TO OPPOSE SEXISM AND MISOGYNY; and the neat little riff “against” Creationism, placing it in “generations,” periods, etc., and coupling it with the notion, or ANY notion, of “logic,” again, Dude, we are poking fun at and pointing out holes in ill-conceived, unworthy, devolving, dying ideologies, aren’t we (and what’s wrong with that?); and last, the hilarious, maybe my favorite of the section, “You can’t smoke in here, this is America,” I certainly shouldn’t have to explain how funny this is and fun and why it’s so. Good, neat, intelligent, thoughtful, fun, knowledgable, and wise stuff – Poming. Smiles…
From a Michael Robbins poem I was reading:
A specter is haunting communism.
I think the lake reminds me of a wafer
bottled in Arkansas & shipped
with maple porn.
—
Left Behind to certify the velcro of small things
—antlers in our milk, the hen
that guesses our weight—
the hen that stamps our names on tin bands—
Management of Widow Burning,
or, The Cultural Logic of Late Creationism.
Steve

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:05:21 +0000

Assumptions, assumptions… Lydia & Michael assume that if you don’t think like they do, you don’t think at all.
It’s still possible, in the US, to be politically centrist – that is, centered, very roughly speaking, between the positions of the 2 major parties. It’s possible to be centered on certain basic political values, like democracy, government by consent; rule of law; legal protection for persons and property; and so on. I, in turn, am assuming that Lucia’s original comments on “left” and “right” presuppose this center, from which the 2 parties diverge primarily on matters of social policy.
Michael, Lydia, and Noam Chomsky may uphold different political values and standards. That’s fine. It’s a free country. That’s what I think. This is not the same as thinking “alls’ right with the world”, which is what Lydia is accusing me of (in so many words).
As Reginald Shepherd likes to say – peace & poetry…

By: Lydia Olidea

Lydia Olidea — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:41:59 +0000

I guess Michael’s point (aside from the fact that American poets seem to fall within the famously narrow spectrum of American party politics and not at any critical distance from it), is that the confusion of strong historical distinctions like that between “left” and “liberal” is not merely a nomenclatural divide, but an indication of the degree of political unawareness, centrist slippage, and casual sanction afflicting the group in question — no?
(Although Henry Gould’s cheerful urgency to not think about such things seems like an excellent example of Travis Nichols’ description of a poet serving the right. So perhaps he himself is a counterexample to Lucia Perillo’s original claim?)

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:58:22 +0000

So, the thesis is that poets tend leftward, where “left” is defined as supporting the presidential candidate of one of the two major business parties — a man who will not rule out nuclear retaliation against Iran; who pledges to continue, in defiance of world opinion, U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank & Gaza; who wants to expand the role of religious institutions in government; &c.
What Noam Chomsky has to say about Obama is relevant to the confusion this thread is perpetuating (which is relevant to the confusion media discussion of presidential politics perpetuates): “Take Barack Obama, for example. In this morning’s New York Times, a front-page story reports his foreign policy stance, based on an exclusive interview. It opens by reporting that if elected he would offer ‘a possible promise not to seek “regime change”‘ if Iran stopped ‘acting irresponsibly’ in Iraq, stopped supporting ‘terrorist activities,’ and cooperated with the US on ‘nuclear issues.’ Not a promise, just a possible promise in reward for ‘good behavior.’ The threat of force is, of course, a serious violation of the UN Charter, but that seems not to be a matter of concern. The idea that Iran is ‘acting irresponsibly’ in Iraq can indeed be raised: on the assumption that we own the world, so that if we invade and occupy another country, any interference with our actions is ‘irresponsible.’ . . . [H]ow astonishing his statements are, except, once again, on the assumption that we own the world.”
So we can reformulate the thesis this way: Why are poets aligned with a set of assumptions about the world such that their support for a political figure who takes it as obvious that the United States should continue to act as if international law is irrelevant, bending other nations to its will by force if necessary, is seen as evidence of their occupying the left-liberal end of the political spectrum.

By: Travis Nichols

Travis Nichols — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:55:23 +0000

Not to quibble (because that surely isn’t what blog comments are for!), but I put forth my thoughts on why more poets aren’t actively aligned with the right, not on why they are aligned with the left. I tend to think they’re mostly neither, which of course does not imply neutrality.