Rhetoric has returned with Obama. More than anything else it was his careful, intelligent and incisive use of language that got him elected. It had the effect of electrifying not only fellow Americans but millions of people across the world.
Yes, of course, it was the substance of his speeches; but it was his ability to convince that made the difference. This power of words is something one might expect to appear occasionally among poets, but it has largely disappeared from poetry in this part of the world at least.
Certainly it’s an ability that comes to the fore in times of strife, (Yeats’ phrase “a terrible beauty is born” from “Easter 1916” has this essence). So one might argue that it’s the absence of outright war on our soil, but I think a majority of poets have avoided engagement with hot issues or are not sufficiently affected by the horrors of our time to write in this way. (I count myself among these.)
It’s an engagement that should be re-ignited,perhaps best done with students in secondary schools, for the sake of making poetry more relevant(and therefore more popular),for deepening the feeling and understanding that people have for what’s happening around them.
Who should instigate or lobby for such an initiative: Poetry Ireland? publishers? Association of English teachers? Amnesty Int? I don't know.
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