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On The Political Or Nonpolitical Poetry

Por: Ataol Behramoğlu

Poetry can talk on everything.

Every fact can be the subject of poetry.

The poetical problem doesn’t concern  the subject but it does  in which way  that subject is seen and perceived and how it is transformed in to poetry.

 Your purpose of writing a poem should be political or not.

  Existent magnificent poems inspired  by political themes while there are  others written  by nonpolitical impulsions and not worthy a button.

And of course  the contrary is true too.

The essential thing, I believe, is to be able to create in readers or in audience a feeling of beauty, an excitement, concerning   that  miracle, that we are calling life.  

But how, in which  way a poet can succeed it?

There isn’t  any  formula to  do it.

Every  poet should undoubtedly   have the immense technical knowledges of making poetry.

But I believe that there is another necessity which isn’t less important than this one.

It’s  to feel the explicit or implicit movements of the contemporary life and to reveal   with the language of poetry the yet unconsciously  quivering feelings and expectations in human kind.

  As regards the language of poetry its not simply the conversational  language or only metaphorical sayings, but a more complicated thing including them too.

  That language has in itself beside  the individual voices of poets, the internal and external voices of the time flowing over, of all the life in brief.

   You can not take off from this complex substance  the fact that is said policy.

A poem concerning the individual life or another one written with a certain political aim can equally have a strong effect on  the masses.

İf  we are talking on poetry…

 

 

Now I would like to  touch on another important and more actual  question concerning the poetry.

Why poet and poetry lost their importance that they had once?

I will not repeat the facts that  we all are knowing.

We all know that the human being has alienated to his own existence during some last centuries.

I think that the problem concerning the poetry is essentially related  just to this fact.

Poetry is something  essential for human being, the deepest form of the expression  of his existence…

It is totally understandable that it loses its importance and value if  the human being is going to lose them.

If we believe in this common destiny of poetry and human kind, its not difficult to draw an inference:

Poetry can recover its importance and value that it had once,  only through the  releasing  of human being   from the alienation.

In other words, salvation or annihilation for both of them, is a shared, common destiny.

In this case, I believe,  poet has to feel his(or her) irrecusable ,decisive responsibility and mission.

 

     As the conclusion I would like to say that the problems of all  poets are common too  regardless of their   individual, different comprehensions on poetry .

   Sometimes we must go out of our  personal workshops for flicking through the works of others, for improving  and expanding the  capacity of the self-criticism.

And the most important I think, is to unit and organize our forces and talents for retrieval our missing mission and our place in society.

Poetry festivals have a special  importance in this case.

Última actualización: 03/01/2022