Freedom of expression in Poetry.

[Carousal]

Freedom of expression in Poetry.

How should we as poets react to a poem on a controversial subject? i.e. political, religious, gun law, abortion etc.
Should we make a judgment solely on the poem merits as a poem or simply dismiss it because it displays a view that is opposite to our own?
On the face of it this seems an easy question to answer but in reality it isn’t. On one hand I think most of us would support the poet’s right to the freedom of expression on any subject but on the other hand when the content comes in direct conflict with our own passionately held views and beliefs, doesn’t our support of the freedom of expression waver?.
Many of the arts face this dilemma, for example:
Barenboim chose to conduct the Israel Philharmonic in two Wagner overtures in Israel whilst knowing that the composer Wagner was an ardent anti-Semitic throughout his life.Barenboim made his decision based on the excellence of the music alone which he greatly admired. Broadly I agree with him but then I am not a Jew, if I was? Hmm, I wonder.

[ChristopherSea]

Freedom of expression in Poetry.

How should we as poets react to a poem on a controversial subject? i.e. political, religious, gun law, abortion etc.
Should we make a judgment solely on the poem merits as a poem or simply dismiss it because it displays a view that is opposite to our own?
On the face of it this seems an easy question to answer but in reality it isn’t. On one hand I think most of us would support the poet’s right to the freedom of expression on any subject but on the other hand when the content comes in direct conflict with our own passionately held views and beliefs, doesn’t our support of the freedom of expression waver?.
Many of the arts face this dilemma, for example:
Barenboim chose to conduct the Israel Philharmonic in two Wagner overtures in Israel whilst knowing that the composer Wagner was an ardent anti-Semitic throughout his life.Barenboim made his decision based on the excellence of the music alone which he greatly admired. Broadly I agree with him but then I am not a Jew, if I was? Hmm, I wonder.

Simple, the poem is not the poet.

[ellajam]

It depends on where I'm reading. If a poem is posted in a workshop here, ideally it deserves my efforts at critique based on the poem, even if the idea of the poem is distasteful to me. If I'm reading elsewhere and the poet continually writes from a view that turns me off, I lose interest and move on. I read for pleasure, and if the themes bore me, no matter how well crafted the poems are I'd rather be reading another poet.

[Carousal]

While I admire the simplicity in your reply I would find it hard to paste that view on a poem that appeared to support the freedom of a pedophile to engage in his sexual perversions. That would stretch my support for freedom in expression to breaking point.

[ChristopherSea]

While I admire the simplicity in your reply I would find it hard to paste that view on a poem that appeared to support the freedom of a pedophile to engage in his sexual perversions. That would stretch my support for freedom in expression to breaking point.

What about an incestuous pedophile like Ann Sexton? She did not write about molesting her daughter. Nonetheless, some would be troubled by reading any of her work knowing what she did.

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While I admire the simplicity in your reply I would find it hard to paste that view on a poem that appeared to support the freedom of a pedophile to engage in his sexual perversions. That would stretch my support for freedom in expression to breaking point.

What if a poet wrote a poem about pedophilia, but was not one? That should be alright, like an actor playing a role.

[Carousal]

[quote='ChristopherSea' pid='158996' dateline='1396018632']


What about an incestuous pedophile like Ann Sexton? She did not write about molesting her daughter. Nonetheless, some would be troubled by reading any of her work knowing what she did.

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[quote='


That’s slightly off the point, if she never wrote a poem on the subject there would be no issue as to her poetry per se but to her reputation maybe but that’s another subject.

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What if a poet wrote a poem about pedophilia, but was not one? That should be alright, like an actor playing a role.

I don’t see any difference if the poet meant it as a personal piece or not i.e. he/she must have had a reason for putting it the public domain and how would the reader know the difference unless he/she added a disclaimer.

[billy]

how do we react on a poem...we either like it or don't like it for numerous reasons. personally we don't do the rape gratification stuff on the site but that doesn't mean rape poems written to show how awful it can be as a victim are to be dismissed. if you give feedback it should if possible be on the poetry as seen with an impartial eye. by all means say you don't like skinheads, abortion, gay marriage (if that's what the poem is about but try not to fault it simply because you disagree with the sentiment.) i've read some of sexton's poetry and even done a homage to one of them she was it seems a sick woman but that said her poems are often well written and one would be very hard pushed to point them out as child porn etc. i personally don't/didn't know the woman though i've read she had some issues. would i refuse to read her poetry because of siad issues? never...that said i don't listen to micheal jackson's music anymore. we are who and what we are and we all see what we see. i've read mien kampf as have millions of jews, it does not mean i or they like hitler. i did think it an interesting read though. not something i'd follow or believe to much but interesting. to sum up my POV the choice is with the reader.

[ChristopherSea]

how do we react on a poem...we either like it or don't like it for numerous reasons. personally we don't do the rape gratification stuff on the site but that doesn't mean rape poems written to show how awful it can be as a victim are to be dismissed. if you give feedback it should if possible be on the poetry as seen with an impartial eye. by all means say you don't like skinheads, abortion, gay marriage (if that's what the poem is about but try not to fault it simply because you disagree with the sentiment.) i've read some of sexton's poetry and even done a homage to one of them she was it seems a sick woman but that said her poems are often well written and one would be very hard pushed to point them out as child porn etc. i personally don't/didn't know the woman though i've read she had some issues. would i refuse to read her poetry because of siad issues? never...that said i don't listen to micheal jackson's music anymore. we are who and what we are and we all see what we see. i've read mien kampf as have millions of jews, it does not mean i or they like hitler. i did think it an interesting read though. not something i'd follow or believe to much but interesting. to sum up my POV the choice is with the reader.

I agree for the most part. I would probably not want to own an Adolf Hitler painting or wish to sing and dance a Charles Manson song. However, I did like the tune, 'Springtime for Hitler' from Mel Brooks movie, 'The Producers'

[Carousal]

I never intended this should be what we should allow or not in this or any other forum, the point of my post is, as I said is should we promote the overall concept of freedom of expression in all art. I would guess that yes is a universal opinion. Perhaps the reference to pedophilia was unsuitable because as a father of four girls that practice in particular disgusts me. But do I believe in censuring the poet’s views on the subject? In truth I have to confess of being unsure.

[ChristopherSea]

I never intended this should be what we should allow or not in this or any other forum, the point of my post is, as I said is should we promote the overall concept of freedom of expression in all art. I would guess that yes is a universal opinion. Perhaps the reference to pedophilia was unsuitable because as a father of four girls that practice in particular disgusts me. But do I believe in censuring the poet’s views on the subject? In truth I have to confess of being unsure.

No one would disagree with you on that topic. The fact that there is a club called NAMBLA: North American Man/Boy Love Association that fosters pedophilia warrants a good headquarters bombing or public lynching in my opinion. Role playing in poetry for some subjects may be better posted with a disclaimer. However, other writers don't seem to have to do so. I have posted a first person poem as a sociopath wanting to kill his psychologist, another about domestic violence and a third one condemning Mardi Gras. All were playing roles. However, I did have to claim the 'poem was not the poet' on the third piece because of some flack about religious overtones.

[Leanne]

From the Rubric:

Remember: Whether you LIKE the poem is the very last thing you should consider if you wish to remain objective.

Poetry probably doesn't unsettle us enough these days. At its very best, it is a challenge to our dearly-held beliefs and should cause us to reevaluate our positions constantly. However, it has been my experience that many people who write on "distasteful" subjects do so with the express purpose to shock, which generally makes their poems heavy-handed, amateurish and borderline (or not so borderline) preachy. This makes our judgment pretty simple: you've written a crap poem and your subject is crap, so why should I bother reading any further?

On the other hand, Browning's Porphyria's Lover is an awesome poem -- but strangling a girl with her own hair isn't a subject I'd choose voluntarily

[milo]

From the Rubric:

Remember: Whether you LIKE the poem is the very last thing you should consider if you wish to remain objective.

Poetry probably doesn't unsettle us enough these days. At its very best, it is a challenge to our dearly-held beliefs and should cause us to reevaluate our positions constantly. However, it has been my experience that many people who write on "distasteful" subjects do so with the express purpose to shock, which generally makes their poems heavy-handed, amateurish and borderline (or not so borderline) preachy. This makes our judgment pretty simple: you've written a crap poem and your subject is crap, so why should I bother reading any further?

On the other hand, Browning's Porphyria's Lover is an awesome poem -- but strangling a girl with her own hair isn't a subject I'd choose voluntarily

One of my favourites. This doesn't even touch on the distasteful things going on in Titus Andronicus or Oscar Wilde's Salome.

[Carousal]

Oh come on, all of us can tell when a writer is depicting a horrific scene and when the writer is stating his or her personal views on a controversial subject.

There is no evidence that Shakespeare had a liking for pies filled with baked kids.

[rayheinrich]

"Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Ezra Pound embraced Benito
Mussolini's fascism, expressed support for Adolf Hitler and
wrote for publications owned by the British fascist Oswald Mosley.
During World War II the Italian government paid him to make hundreds
of radio broadcasts criticizing the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt
and Jews."


'Ezra Pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining
and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. His own significant
contributions to poetry begin with his promulgation of Imagism, a movement
in poetry which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese
poetry—stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language and
foregoing traditional rhyme and meter in order to, in Pound's words,
"compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the
metronome." '

(People that write free verse are Nazi's.


Ezra Pound’s rules:





As well as:

Triumph of the Will gave Leni Riefenstahl instant and lasting
international fame, as well as infamy. She directed eight films,
two of which received significant coverage outside Germany. The
propaganda value of her films made during the 1930s repels most
modern commentators, but many film historians cite the aesthetics
as outstanding. The Economist wrote that Triumph of the Will
"sealed her reputation as the greatest female filmmaker of the
20th century".



Leni Riefenstahl and Hitler

Not to mention "the single most important individual in the
development of film as an art": D. W. Griffith. His seminal
film "The Birth of a Nation" denigrated African-Americans,
White Unionists, and the Reconstruction; and positively
portrayed the Ku Klux Klan.

[Erthona]

William Blake wrote, "You never know what is enough, until you know what is too much." It has not been all that long ago when women were regarded as property, and the man could do pretty much as he wished to them. This is where the expression "rule of thumb" came from. In other words he could not beat her with a stick that was bigger around than his thumb. Such a law when instituted would have seemed liberal to the majority of the people. I am sure there were more than a few men who said such things as, who the hell does the government think it is telling me what size of stick I can beat my wife with, it's none of their damn business. We progressed, and are still progressing through what constitutes child abuse, and at what point the the government can step in and remove the child from the home. But, and this is a big but (and not mine), there is a way poetry can examines a particular issue, such as in "The Whipping" by Robert Hayden (see below), without the point being one of titillation, or preaching. Let the poem bring awareness to the reader, but do not tell the reader what to think. There is for me, a fairly obvious line that says if a poem is written for shock value, or if a poem is shocking because of the subject matter. Maybe it is not always easy to see, but with a little thought one can generally tell if the poem is exploitative or not. Everyone always wants hard and fast rules to go by, but as with most things in life, one has to actually use ones brain to come to a conclusion. Will there be pieces that are on the line, certainly, and as we have always done, we will struggle with them and among ourselves, but this is how we progress down the road to discovering the mores which are the most humane, but at the same time allow for the greatest amount of freedom, and in our case, freedom of expression.

Dale

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The Whipping by Robert Hayden
The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.

[billy]

it seems the consensus is, if it's good poetry, it's good poetry. while there will always be some that don't think a poem good or great, the thing will either stand or fall on it's quality as a poem. liked the poem dale.

i remember reading a poem about sex with a minor (someone asked me for feedback) the poem was almost childish in it's construction and done for shock value alone. it in some ways repulsed me that such a think could be written by an adult in order to simply shock, i gave it fair feedback and pointed out all the things which didn't work, i couldn't actually find anything in the poem of note (craftwise) which sort of bears out what leanne said.

[shemthepenman]

wasn't it Thomas Paine who said something like (I'm paraphrasing), one of the vices of people who seek to repress the freedom of expression of others is that they make prisoners of their own opinions, because they deny their own freedom for changing them.

and on the point about being shocking and controversial for the sake of being shocking and controversial, there seems nothing wrong with that, to me. The desensitized generation that history has spawned shouldn't be worn as a badge of honer but rather one of infancy and complete submission to a system that has beaten the human spirit down so far that one is apathetic to any idea outside the status quo (a neat trick: The over-codification of apathy

with regards to the people who produce art that, as people, I would find reprehensible, i would echo the statements before me, that a good poem is a good poem; but, I would add the caveat that if the person was personally offensive to me then I don't think I could view it in a non-contextual framework... for example, if my if my ex-girlfriend asked me to judge a poem by her new boyfriend that for everyone else was Joyce+1, I would rather jettison my copy of Ulysses and deny the merits of stream of consciousness poetry, than admit any talent on his part offense really is subjective, and being a white, unmolested, atheist, middle class male (= nihilist), poems about little baby black children being rapped and eaten in front of their parents sucking off God fucking a dildo, artfully done, is far less offensive than a poem by someone I know calling me a cunt

[Erthona]

"on the point about being shocking and controversial for the sake of being shocking and controversial, there seems nothing wrong with that, to me."

I think you're missing the point. Not all things can be poetry, or you loose the use of the word. If "the point being one of titillation, or preaching" then it becomes porn or a sermon. Plus, as you point out, a poem consists of more than just the topic, or the content.

There were two movies produced (lately) of "Sweeny Todd" the first with Angela Lansbury, the second directed by Tim Burton. To me, the first was a work of art, the second was a farce, as it made the grotesque the focal point, whereas the first focused on the emotional turmoil within the characters, and that revenge ion the end takes everything from you.

But here, you decide:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Darfur

Brutal lies make brutal lives.
Brutalize, sodomize, cauterize, hypocritize,
Suicide, pesticide, tellnolies of genocide.

Little girls, young girls, rape them good,
Rape them like, a big man should.
Little boys, with your lies imbue,
So they can die, instead of you.
Rat-a-tat-tat, Rat-a-tat-tat,
Little girl pussy, for the fat cat.
Huff, huff, huff. Huff, huff, huff,
fill her up, with his stuff.

Another little baby in the world,
If it’s a girl He’ll give her a whirl,
Run, run, run. Run, run, run.
If it’s a boy, He’ll give him a gun,
Run, run, run. Run, run, run.
Killing and raping, so much fun.
Run, run, run. Run, run, run.
Into their bellies, pump lead and cum.

Millions from their homes have run,
Whether by prick, or whether by gun.
Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang.
Get us more little young girl tang.
Rat-a-tat-tat, Rat-a-tat-tat,
Tiny little girl; make her fat.
Fight, fight, fight. Fight, fight, fight.
Slit some throats in the dark of night.


Dale

[Leanne]

Oh come on, all of us can tell when a writer is depicting a horrific scene and when the writer is stating his or her personal views on a controversial subject.

Not if it's a good poem -- that is, for the duration of a well-written poem, the author is absent and all that is present is the voice speaking to the reader. If we absolutely must place so much emphasis on "what the writer is thinking", we're not experiencing the poem, we're judging the poet.

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I lie all the time in poems. I am really a middle-aged lorry driver from Ilford, and my only vice is the burning need to eviscerate puppies.

[Carousal]

Oh come on, all of us can tell when a writer is depicting a horrific scene and when the writer is stating his or her personal views on a controversial subject.

Not if it's a good poem -- that is, for the duration of a well-written poem, the author is absent and all that is present is the voice speaking to the reader. If we absolutely must place so much emphasis on "what the writer is thinking", we're not experiencing the poem, we're judging the poet.

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I lie all the time in poems. I am really a middle-aged lorry driver from Ilford, and my only vice is the burning need to eviscerate puppies.

That sounds like turning poetry into an academic exercise, no wonder the general public doesn’t bother with it..