PLUMBING THE SOUL

[shemthepenman]

Politics is not a game but a serious battlefield where competing sides fight for power. Sometimes that power is used wisely, other times used mainly for the benefit of those wielding it who usually want even more. They always say they're doing it for the good of the people. If poets can open some eyes to what's going on all will be better  for it. To say this is an empty subject will please those power mongers because they know you'll simply ignore their bad  behavior--so they can keep on doing it.

The only reason for poets to stay away from controversy is that it is far less likely than feel good writing to see the light of day.

much as it pains me to have to [partially] side with Chomsky--it always does, but i always seem to be doing it lately--to think the government aren't rubbing their hands together at these petty 'controversies' is ludicrous. it's a distraction. television's not doing as good a job as it once was. so they throw you a bone: a first world problem will do the trick. and you argue and fight [because they know you've got some fight in you], make memes and youtube videos, and write tumblr posts about how gender is fluid or men should be men or black lives matter or maybe they don't or how some girl got triggered when some copper got shot. . . and to say this subject is not empty will please the powers that be because it's an empty issue to fill empty heads and empty lives, that gives you the illusion that you're in control. you might as well write a poem about the x factor for all the political good it does or eyes that it opens.

Chumpsky is to politics what Derrida is to language. The power boys make the serious look like not worth bothering with while making the frivolous look serious, this because the former is difficult to deal with, the latter, not. Where true thinkers go astray is by writing 30,000 word essays while the evil prosper with easy-to-remember slogans which often enough even lack verbs. Power brokers love the likes of tumblr because, as an anonymous fellow noted, if the mob has free speech it thinks itself free.
If the poetry world weren't tightly controlled by its establishment, we might see some strong verse a la Kipling (when not peddling -Oh, my God!- imperialism and didactics).

i wouldn't have a clue what the 'poetry establishment' is. . . sounds nasty. regardless, the political artist [painter, poet, musician] is only effective by being an artist. take away the art of Picasso and all you're left with is another cliche hippie voice saying "war is bad", instead of the genius of Guernica that can move one to tears. trivialising a poem about what someone had for breakfast is elitist crap that compartmentalises and hierarchicalises the human spirit and freedom and art. the very thing that makes Guernica inspirational isn't its politics, it's its humanity. don't think tree, think grass.