World Class Poetry Blog

Poetics Vs. Politics: I Just Have This To Say About That
15 January 2008, the poet @ 8:01 pm

Sharon Brogan posted a poem on her website and received some feedback. It’s an excellent poem. It grabs you right from the beginning:

Don’t those pollsters know
that married women
lie in the presence
of their husbands?

The poem doesn’t disappoint at all. Completely through to the end, I was on the edge of my seat awaiting the climax and the final sigh. It came. And I fell limp, out of breath.

The poem was also published at New Verse News.

I love the defense that Brogan gives of her poetry at Watermark, her poetry blog. A snippet:

First, let me mention that (like many, if not most poets) I often write in a voice not my own; that neither the speaker nor the subject of my poem is necessarily me. Like a novelist, I am attempting to say truth with fiction, true fiction, as it were. I have found, through the years, that adherence to fact can actually impede the expression of truth.

These are the words of a true poet. Beginning poets often try to write in their own voice or seek to get an exact moment the way it really was, like a photograph. That’s not what poetry is all about.

Political poetry, particularly, is difficult to write. It is difficult because too often the poet is too close to the issue about which they are writing. The poem will usually come across as a rant or a whine. For most readers, such poems fail to speak to them directly. But a finely tuned poem with a message, even an unpopular one, can enlighten, educate, draw attention to, or shed light on a topic that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. That’s what I Just Have This To Say About That does.

Does it carry a popular message, or one that is pleasant to hear? No. Particularly among a certain group of people. Brogan says she has been accused of betraying women. I just love her response:

But the suggestion does raise the question — are there things that must not be said? Isn’t that how we got here to begin with, by being told that there are questions which must not be asked, things which must not be said? Isn’t this, at least in part, what art is for: to say what is not allowed, to uncover what is buried?

Absolutely. Poetry is where the woman can let her hair down. It is the place where the black man can be an unfettered black man. Where a plain white vanilla old man like me can get down and paint his neck red without embarrassment. I sure can’t do that at the Cowboy Church.

Poets are liars. Our profession is to defend the lie and to defend it heartily. Brogan does that well. If we can’t defend the lie when it counts then how in Hellfire and Fury will we ever be able to defend the Truth? I just had to say that.

This post was made possible by the encouragement of Billy the Blogging Poet.

1 Comment a “Poetics Vs. Politics: I Just Have This To Say About That”

1. Alan Bender — January 21, 2008 @ 9:44 am
   

   It is an excellent piece isn’t it? I was the person who suggested Sharon submit it to NVN. I was so sure it would be a hit.

   This is excellent. Really cuts to the bone

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