Poetry or politics- what is different?

487d43311e4a44619d9f5b43e5fda29c_18https://electricliterature.com/what-can-poetry-do-that-politics-cant-89fce5a6dc41

 

Extract:

 Zapruder wants to have it both ways — to preserve poetry as a place for intellectual and creative freedom and also for the outcome of this unlimited freedom to be automatically ethical. “Following our internal sense of music leads us to revealing who we really are,” he continues. But what if “who we really are” is white supremacist or fascist or authoritarian? History is filled with examples of excellent artists who subscribed to odious systems of thought, not least of whom was Wallace Stevens, who serves as the kind of patron saint of Zapruder’s book. Stevens, it must be remembered, once wrote a poem called, “Like Decorations in a N****r Cemetery.” Beyond this more obvious example of historical villainy are the more mundane and widespread instances of contemporary white poets who write unconsciously white supremacist poems, contemporary male poets who write unconsciously male supremacist poems, contemporary capitalist poets who write unconsciously capitalist poems, and so on. To say that if a poet writes something that aligns with her own standards of truth and beauty the result will automatically be ethical is pure magical thinking. Poets are no more ethical than anyone else, nor are our inner lives any less poisoned by the political systems we inhabit.