by Ren Powell

Not that many years ago, I tried to start a discussion with the members of our local writers’ group regarding writers’ responsibilities. They threw spitballs at me and called me a pedagogue, which is a really bad word I had to look up. This whole conversation began when I read a children’s book about a little girl who was angry with her mother, so she peed all over her toys. End of story. There were no consequences for the peeing. I said I wouldn’t read that story to my kids if it were the only book in the library: I don’t like cleaning up pee. My colleagues said that the book was in fun, and that kids wouldn’t emulate the character. (I wonder if any of them have kids themselves.)

Do you think the writer was responsible in regard to her audience (or her audience’s families*) when she wrote the book? Is that even a question that should be asked?

A more complex question keeps turning in my head: do we, as adults, learn from what we read? If we read poem after poem that pairs poverty with race, women with head-in-ovens, violent behavior with high social status, are we subconsciously influenced in the way we perceive reality? If so, do we poets have a social responsibility?

When we talk about socially responsible poetry, we aren’t only talking about rhymes concerning potty manners, but about the way we communicate our experience of the world — and how we want to experience it. We describe the state of politics: the distribution of power, even if we write of nothing more than accepting the authority of our god or satirizing our high school algebra teacher.

I believe we write the kind of poetry we read (or are told to read), and that after a while, we think what we write (as opposed to writing what we think)! And it’s clear that governments agree with me. In many countries dissident poets have been forced to write government propaganda as a way to rehabilitate them. Among them are Aleksandrs Caks (1901-1950); Maksym Tadeyovych Rylsky (1895-1964); Serge Prokofieff (1891-1953) … and even today, Sinan Antoon in Iraq.

When we talk about “political poetry” we almost always mean poetry that speaks of current political events — specific wars and economic inequalities and injustices: rallying cries we recognize and understand quickly. This poetry intends to convert people in regard to a specific cause. But here are two definitions of politics we rarely consider:

• The exercise of power, often, but not always, through formal institutions
• The study of the nature of the common good

A poem that says “vote for ABC” or “stop the war in Iraq” is very different from (though no less legitimate than) a poem that says “Look what people have done/are doing to one another; be a part of the common good”. When Thomas Mann said, “In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms,” he wasn’t talking about the result of any single election.

Poetry that intends to communicate a condition and influence long-term changes in power distribution is also political.

“American History” by Michael S. Harper demands action without providing us with a slogan. With ironic nonchalance, he lays out reality and appeals to our “nature of the common good.” He may be preaching to the choir, but it’s a big choir. It’s possible to substitute the African-Americans in the poem with any marginalized group, in any country. He’s not trying to convert; he’s trying to light a fire under choir butts.

And in his “In a Country” Larry Levis just dreams. No slogans, no explicit demands, but the communication of a dream of the common good. (And look where some people’s optimistic dreams — dreams like those of Martin Luther King — have led us!)

I admire good poetry that has propagandist intentions. But I don’t believe good propaganda is the criteria for good poetry. Ever. There are two sides to every story, yes, but there is a lot of complexity in between those poles. The responsible poet is brave enough to deal with that complexity and still communicate the depth of his or her convictions.

Good poetry is effortlessly socially responsible, because telling the truth is always responsible, and good poetry is inherently truthful.

Wilfred Owen’s WWI poem “Dulce et decorum est” says explicitly that it is not “sweet to die for one’s country.” It communicates that war is horrific (in a way that just writing the word horrific never could). If the poem is read within the context of today’s war in Iraq, it could be interpreted and utilized as an anti-war rallying cry without corrupting the poem’s intention or manipulating its meaning.

If this same poem is read in the context of WWII and the fight against Nazism, it shows us war as the most tragic of human circumstances. Our soldiers make gruesome sacrifices. It is not an “anti-war” poem with the intent to rally the public to put a sudden end to the war. I doubt any of us (save Quakers) would say that the Allied Forces should have lain down their guns and gone home in 1942. There is no reason to believe Owen would have either.

Read in either context, the poem de-romanticizes war. It tells the truth. War is horrific. Owen’s poem has outlived many wars because it is honest. Political. Responsible. It makes us want to put an end to all wars forever.

Personally, the poem affects me most deeply when I read it within the context of a “justified” war. I believe there was a purpose in WWI. And, in my eyes, this poem demonstrates that the less polarized the poem, the more politically significant it is. In the face of the truth (i.e., the poem), I have to ask myself, “Is the horror the soldiers endure greater than the horror of the status quo?” My answer would be different for every war, but the question would be posed with the same force by the same poem in every case.

Of course there are plenty of transient political poems that are unabashedly propagandist, and they can serve an important purpose. But going back to my earlier question about how what I read and what I write influences what I think … can’t biased writing in large doses encourage biased thinking?

Political poetry isn’t just verses about war and protests for justice. Political poems include all those great poems that make us think about power and the distribution of power. Political poetry is poetry of conscience. Of being conscious, or inspiring consciousness in a people — a politic.

A writer has power, limited only by the number of readers he or she has. So what intention does your poetry have? The personal is political. Should the poet be accountable for the reader’s response?

When I read about Basho’s frog, I hold him accountable for the fact that all I want to do is surrender to the frog. When it comes to the distribution of power — in the face of everything in this world — there is always the invisible, joyfully relentless powers of love and humor.

*Personally, I think if you are writing a children’s poem about a kid peeing on her toys, you might want to tack on a couplet about the tragic (and gross) drowning of Raggedy Ann.