| WRITERS UNLIMITED AGENCY, INC. http://www.writersunlimited.org LIPS WU CHI ... UNS THE CONSCIENCE OF THE POET by David B. Axelrod Here on Long Island, folks have asked me if I would participate in readings against the war in Iraq. I am not a particularly political person. I have always maintained that poetry is a "politics" of its own. I consider it my duty to observe and give voice to what truths I may see. Poetry comes from an ancient an honorable tradition: Seekers of Truth. We write our poems and in so doing, we try to encircle the truth. Working folks Crazy People People of Letters Holy People Poets can, after all, be people from all walks of life. There are many good, hard-working, relatively un-trained people who write fine poetry. When I lived and performed my poems in Sicily, for instance, I was frequently approached by farmers and fisherman who asked to recite their poems. When they did so, they spoke with passion, reciting long lyric poems in praise of nature and their landand all from memory! They were passionate poets! Other people may consciously reject higher education, or they may be self-trained. But theirs is every bit as valid a search. It may be a tragedy in life turns them inward and they find, perhaps just once in their life, that they have a poem to express. Then, of course, there are those who have spent time in the universities and often those poets who earn their living as people of letters. B.A., M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D.! I myself have more letters after my last name than in it. We who are accredited may have a formal claim on "professing" to know the truth but there is no guarantee higher education will make a person a good poet, let alone a clearer seer of the truth. | |
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