How is poetry and politics related? Poetry can be presented with a sort of influence over the audience, displaying messages to sway the people in the author’s favor. This movement is known as eloquence. Poetry can affect a person’s political opinions and conveys power. Some performers even die for expressing their political view through their poetic expression. Sometimes people who are not high in the ranks in the political scene can elevate their status through recitation of poetry. If utilized correctly, poetry is a powerful tool in changing a person’s mind. How does poetry affect politics and does it convey a powerful message to the people?
When it comes to sources to answer this question, I will be using work by Brathwaite, Mikey Smith, Gabrielle Bellot, Ford-Smith, Amanda Gorman, and John Stuart Mill. Already, there are lots of sources from class that I could pick information from to fit the topic of politics. Some difficulty I may face may be attempting to keep my paper neutral and avoiding delving into politics that may be too controversial. Another issue may be finding sources that connect poetry and politics together.
B-TEAM
To set up the background of the information, John Stuart Mill’s paper “Thoughts on Poetry and its Varieties” provides lots of insight into what eloquence is and the difference between performing for oneself and performing to move the audience. This can help develop the the basis for explaining poetry as political speech. For a theory, I could potentially delve into Brathwaite and Bellot’s essays to show controversy over Caribbean poets and the discrimination they face. This theory being that poets with different dialects hold less influence over people outside of their countries. For deeper analysis within the “Exhibit” category, Amanda Gorman’s speech is a well-known political poem that could be further dissected and studied for why it was so effective. Potentially, I could find another source that discusses Amanda Gorman further. For the argumentative standpoint, I would need to find a source that disagrees with poetry’s power to introduce a different viewpoint and then disprove the perspective with evidence gathered to support my claim of poetry’s political influence. This could pose a difficulty depending on how many author’s may believe that poetry is not important in that regard. Finally, for the motive behind the subject of poetic arts in politics, I could utilize the source of Ford-Smith as he covers Mikey Smith. Mikey Smith is an example of politics being his demise. It is a situation that shows how intense political divides can be and how truly influential poetry can become if it is merged within politics. I could find more sources to further prove the importance and the dangers of politics.