Here we are on the other side of an election that has divided many of us. What can poems do for us? Wake us up? What keeps a political poem fresh, or from hurtling toward the didactic. What even makes a poem political—rather than mere words reporting on events or defending some viewpoint. Are poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world" as Shelley proclaimed or is this unique positioning of language the ultimate answer to seeing all sides of human nature. We will look at poems from Yehuda Amichai, Adrienne Rich, Yosef Komunyakaa, Caroline Forche, Claudia Rankine, and more.
Sophie Cabot Black was raised on a small farm in New England. She received her BA from Marlboro College and her MFA from Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The Atlantic, Bomb, Granta, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, and Poetry.