In France, poets go on talk shows and argue about politics, and then people who disagree with them go to the trouble of making derisive YouTube montages of their comments.
This link is of interest too. Are there American poets who maintain this level of socio-political engagement? Why not?
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Are there American poets who maintain this level of socio-political engagement? Why not?
ReplyDeleteIt's actually startling to my American eyes to see a poet, as you put it, going on a national television show to argue about politics. Once in a great while I'll see someone like Gore Vidal go on one of the talking heads shows and put up with the silliness, but that's once in a great while. And technically he's not a poet.
Many Americans (and students of mine) don't even know "poet" is contemporary. They think poems were something written in the days of yore but are no longer a reality, like guillotines or quill pens.
The U.S. has a different sense of history and a different zeitgeist attitude toward fine arts (do I win the understatement of the day award?). In what's referred to as the "mainstream" of America, poets and other kinds of artists are commonly thought of as weirdos, outsiders, "eccentrics." Gore Vidal, who is a very astute observer of politics and culture in the U.S., goes on some right wing talking heads show and gets called naive and deluded for even using the word "peace" --that sort of thing.
My sense is, from traveling and from observing from afar, is the the Europeans give practitioners of the fine arts "a seat at the table," to use Mr. Obama's language. Their "mainstream" is probably more likely to tolerate a poet's views, whatever they may be.
They're probably more likely to treat poets not as eccentrics to be stuffed into lockers and disregarded, but rather as citizens (imagine that) who, being artists, just might have insight or at least a unique perspective on what's going on. Does this sound like what goes on, or are there other factors I'm missing?