Poetry as Activism

Topic:
Student’s name:
Institution:
Due date:
Poetry as activism
Poetry is not about luxury, but is an important necessity for human existence. It develops the quality of life in which poets predicate their dreams and hopes towards change and survival. Poetry is the technique in which poets assist to give identity to voiceless people so that the rights of the vulnerable should be considered and protected (Love and Mattern 47). The furthest horizon of human fears and hopes assembled by poems is carved from the experiences of people’s daily lives. Poetry is not just about visions and dreams, but it is the skeleton structure for human lives. It forms that a foundation of a change in the future. This paper aims to describe poetry as an activism and examines poets such as Guillermo Gomez-Pena and others including how their poetry is intimately intertwined with activism in specific issues.
Examining cross-cultural issues of poetry as activism
Poetry as activism is a political poetry which promotes a particular ideological view. For example, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” gave warning to the 19th century England of the foreseeable and unavoidable decline of empires. Both combinations of culture of questioning and powerful language give poetry a political power. Chicano activist and poet Francisco X. Alarcon put his thoughts on poetry to act as an activist medium. Alarcon formed a facebook group known as “Poets Responding to SB 1070” which posts poems by aspiring and advanced poets concerning Arizona‘s current controversial immigration law (Santini and Summerfield 251). Many poems are posted daily and the site consists of several creative works being posted. More that six thousand people follow the page which gives them free access to the developing anthology of significant poetry.
Using social media on the developing digital age enables poetry to have a political power by reaching many people as much as possible. Alarcon believes that social changes occur when there is a crucial mass advocating changes. The revolutions that recently happened in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries clearly show that movements inspired by the new social media in which millions of people felt to take action on their own hands (Wang 29). In Tunisia and Egypt, protesters moved across the streets while chanting the poem known as “To the Tyrants of the world” created by the early 20th century poet Abu al-Qasim al-Shabihas. With the recent technological development, people across the world are in a position to listen to such calls for action. It is evident that political poems are capable of creating social consciousness that influences the activism, something which other forms cannot do. And this is the result of mixture of politics and poetry.
Politically charged investigation creates prospects of poetry for both the poem (as artistic medium) and the poet (as a designer). This kind of poetry invokes the literal practice of speaking about the wisdom of a society and also utilizes a poem as a tool of activism (Love and Mattern 54). Critics who question the function of poetry in the practical world can see that activist poetics offer expression about contemporary p...