Political Poetry
We have shortened a lot of things today compared to the past; we chat instead of write long-winded letters, italicize and bold out three-word slogans for popular franchises, and we even shorten our words. But interestingly enough, poetry has changed very little, probably because of the wide range of verse the term encompasses. The appeal is universal, I guess- we can focus on the story without focusing on how to tell the story, which saves loads of time. A lot of novels can be relived in verse, a fact that allows many poets to point and laugh at the laboring novelist in the corner. But a most compelling use for terse verse has been politically based. Political poetry is a true career still for some passionate writers out today- silently dissing or lauding the government while still managing to tell a more removed and independent story. In the States, we can disregard the thrill of political commentary just because we have a First Amendment that says we can (within reason). But what’s more interesting, considering the variations of rights that exist in the world, is the use of poetry to both rile up nationalism as a type of propaganda and secretly violate extreme nationalist sentiments.
Art really does have no law; that’s probably why many political poems have a sense of impunity when they’re written, and poets seem to think they will never get caught. Hypothetical situations and very precise wording are often at their best when the writer is walking a fine line. A good example stems from Communist China in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly during and after the reign of Mao Zedong. Poetry was a fascinating tool for both unification and deviation from the extreme nationalism that came with the personality cult of Mao, who himself took to verse to rile up his citizens.
His poem, reminiscent of the Song Dynasty nationalist verse “Man Jiang Hong”, is a completely removed but pertinent allegory to Chinese patriotism and a diss track of sorts to the western “pests”. Here’s an excerpt:
"On this tiny globe A few flies dash themselves against the wall, Humming without cease, Sometimes shrilling, Sometimes moaning. Ants on the locust tree assume a great-nation swagger And mayflies lightly plot to topple the giant tree."
And then there’s the other side of political poetry, the one with a spark of rebellion in the face of oppression or violence. The British rule in India, almost 2 centuries spanning, was a source of oppression to the Indian people, who needed to unite in order to orchestrate the uprisings and revolution in the first half of the 20th century to reach the dream of independence. In the heyday of this occupation, a meeting of the Indian National Congress was called and this very situation was discussed, in an effort to bring the diverse face of India together. Rabindranath Tagore, a later famous poet, stood up and began to sing a poem written years earlier by Bankim Chattopadhyay. It was the song of the revolution. Here’s an excerpt from the English translation of that song, called “Vande Mataram” or “Hail to the Motherland”:
"Mother, I salute thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, bright with orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving Mother of might, Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams, Over thy branches and lordly streams, Clad in thy blossoming trees, Mother, giver of ease Laughing low and sweet! Mother I kiss thy feet, Speaker sweet and low! Mother, to thee I salute."
No wonder poetry is so beloved today; I bet if you Google it, you might find a few impassioned pieces about the 99%, or indignation at the recent Lockdown and maybe even a jab at the never-ending rise of gas prices. If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw an operatic version of the most famous piece of political poetry in the United States in our National Anthem; if you think closely, in fact, political poetry is so present around us that it’s impossible to think of life today, or government today, without a history of it.
