Legislators of the World

In our dark times we need poetry more than ever, argues Adrienne Rich

There is an interesting article by poet Adrienne Rich in the Saturday, November 18, 2006, online edition of The Guardian. Entitled "Legislators of the World," Rich discusses poetry's influence in the world -- its limitations and its potential.

In "The Defence of Poetry" 1821, Shelley claimed that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world"....And Shelley was, no mistake, out to change the legislation of his time. For him there was no contradiction between poetry, political philosophy, and active confrontation with illegitimate authority. For him, art bore an integral relationship to the "struggle between Revolution and Oppression". His "West Wind" was the "trumpet of a prophecy", driving "dead thoughts ... like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth".

She concludes that:

There is always that in poetry which will not be grasped, which cannot be described, which survives our ardent attention, our critical theories, our late-night arguments. There is always (I am quoting the poet/translator Américo Ferrari) "an unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides".

I can see myself hurtling toward that "where" in my own artistic journey in the long term. I find myself holding my breath as I encounter the horrors, tragedy, confusion, and banality of the world, and I anxiously await the day those apprehensions ripen into mature artistic expression. The work of social justice seems so overwhelming to me, but I find that exploring what's "complicated" in art forces a shift in me.

Perhaps in that shift the world moves too.