Poetic Activism Quotes

a poet will even face death when he sees his people oppressed.

Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin' For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'.

It always surprises me when people say that the realm of the lyric is the personal, and the personal is not political. I just don't know how we can get to 2014 and say that with a straight face. When you think of a poet like Yeats, how can you say politics is not in the poem? When you think of Milosz, how can you say politics is not in the poem?

Poetry is my politics. It's an opportunity that gives me a way to speak.

I did not start out thinking I'm going to become a feminist poet. It was a tag I was given.

Today we should make poems including iron and steel And the poet should know how to lead an attack.

I've been most happy to be an advocate for the kinds of grassroots things that people are doing who care about poetry.

Poets are political, they have to be reflections of their times [because] they're living in their times... Poetry is political in that it's standing in opposition to fascism. Good poetry asks a bunch of questions and asks the audience to interact with themselves or see themselves in it; maybe you like it or you don't like it. But the fascist sort of stuff plays on your fears and tells you to jump on the party line and gives some simple excuses - blame this person.

In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.

What we need are poems that interrogate the world of pronouns, open up possibilities of language and life; forms of politics that support and encourage self-affirmation.

While it is unlikely that poetry or art shall eliminate the reality of war in the twenty-first century, it is thrilling to know there remain individuals, and even entire communities, still willing to invest in art and poetry's own uniquely explosive contributions to the great, and small, dramas of human history.

It is enough for a poet to be the guilty conscience of his age.