How is poetry and politics related? Poetry can be presented with a dominance 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 through utilization of eloquence and poems convey significant power. Politics in past times were similarly influenced by poetry as it is today. American Revolution poets had an authoritative grasp on the willing ears of the time. Even today, the politics of the revolution is discussed and performed through the musical Hamilton. Political division and African American culture is also expressed a great extent through poetics. Some people may identify within politics and write poetry based around their identity which is inherently political. Highly known political debates such as the Black Lives Matter movement have poetry included within them, and the poets guide their audiences to their political opinion in order to modify the public’s opinion. How does poetry affect politics and does it convey a powerful message to the people?
Alyson Miller’s research paper, Ideas, language, action: The protest poetry of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, delves into the proposition that poetry “gives the nameless a name.” I can make use of Miller’s paper by many different B-TEAM aspects, but mostly utilizing “Argument.” A lot of the claim that I make on how poetry has a large impact on influencing politics is reassured and backed up by Miller’s research. There are many sources carefully crafted within Miller’s writing that bolster the idea that poetry and politics are closely linked, boosting one another up and poetry provides a method in which politics can be communicated. A second source that can be used within my writing is Besmir Shishko’s thesis paper over the impact that the musical Hamilton has over the general population now and goes into depth over its effective employment of poetry and hip-hop beats. This source can be used as an “Exhibit” in order to provide an example over how history and poetry is connected and how politics are a lasting, well-discussed topic that continues to be taught over centuries of time. Shishko’s work will be a great benefit for my research paper to be analyzed and explained thoroughly. As well as “Exhibiting” history from Hamilton, Colin Well’s Poetry Wars: Verse and Politics in the American Revolution and Early Republic is a novel that includes American Revolutionary poems that I can further “Exhibit” to showcase more examples of historical poetry in politics. Through this explanation of historical significance, the research paper can cover both the present and the past on political issues that are addressed through poetry. Thus, answering my question on poetry’s relation to politics, and its power of lasting throughout history and time.
Will you be looking at poetry from American Revolution times? I think that would be a cool use of “exhibit” sources and would make for a good contrast to modern day political poetry.
I think this is a strong stance to take on the impact of poetry and it seems that there may be room to also explore identity politics. When it comes to poetry and representation in politics, the aspect of identity seems to pop up quite a bit as poetry is a form of expression. When someone is part of an oppressed community, is there a sense of pressure to be the voice for that whole community?
Gretchen, I’m curious about the Venn diagram relationship between “political poetry” and “protest poetry”–and, when you have that understanding established, if you can use it as a way of tightening the scope of your essay project!