"Can this notion still exist that poetry does not have any feature but to praise beauty and bring joy and we shall not load the
heavy burden of social and political issues on its soft shoulders? I do not know, but I feel this notion can only exist in a utopia, where love rules, where triggers are unknown to hands, where ears and unfamiliar to explosions and where freedom is another name for life. But in a country where one’s Musalmani “Belief in Islam” is measured form the length of his beards, and its city’s rivers smell blood and where blood grows instead of red flowers in the garden and where bread is the hot topic, poetry can never be a silent spectator sitting in its beautiful ivory tower. Yes, if poetry is not political in such lands, it should be made political."
-Partaw Naderi, "The Political Poetry in Afghanistan", Kabul Press, 8th Oct 2006, [http://kabulpress.org/English_letters30.htm]
Is poetry merely an art-form or is it valid as a tool? Is modern poetry used at all as a tool in the United States? Should it be? Should that tool be a political one?
Shachi,
ReplyDeleteI also found myself struggling with A Carnage in the Lovetree so you are not alone there. I'm impressed by your ability to see beyond that and find such an all-encompassing theme, like light vs dark. While reading I was only able to notice the structural patterns Greenfield used. I especially like how you broke down Greenfield's use of light and provided specific
examples of how he used "light" to describe things. Looking back now I can see how Greenfield's use of light in conveying imagery aided in giving the poems their tone.
-Caroline