A poem posted today

[eumelia]

A poem posted to day at greatpoets, which is wonderful community in any event.





Responsibility by Grace Paley

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners
giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets
also leaflets you can hardly bear to look at
because of the screaming rhetoric
It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy
to hang out and prophesy
It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes
It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory
towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C
and buckwheat fields and army camps
It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman
It is the poet’s responsibility to speak truth to power as the
Quakers say
It is the poet’s responsibility to learn the truth from the
powerless
It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no
freedom without justice and this means economic
justice and love justice
It is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the original
and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems
It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it on in the way storytellers decant the story of life
There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no
freedom unless
earth and air and water continue and children
also continue
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on
this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be
listened to this time.

From Begin Again: Collected Poems.

In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.

וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.

Comments

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

To me the line
It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman
is very disturbing.It seems to imply men cannot be men and yet strive for equality and justice and beauty.Which, as a man myself, I naturally find very much insulting.

I do not believe in denying innate parts of your identity for "duty" is, or indeed should be, in the nature of poets.The starting point for every great poet I read was that he or she were themselves and spoke the truth of their identity and the way they saw the world in such a way that I saw Humanity through them, saw the wrongs they perceived through their eyes.In short they took the great truths of the human condition of their time and filtered these truths through their personal experience:For me, that ability is the origin of truly great poetry.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I saw it more that one should be able to identify with something that isn't a part of your innate identity.
I think it has more to do with being able to identify with those oppressed in society.

I agree with you about the poets and the Human Condition, and I think that's exactly what the poet here had done.

Plus, poetry, let's not forget, is very rarely literal.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

It seems that again the truth is in the eye of the beholder- because for me that poem is exclusive, while for you it is inclusive.Which is the reason we dislike and like it respectively.Although I love the lines about "going in and out"