american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

198 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY
This context, in other words, is inescapable. In a column in
The American Book Review (2005) appropriately titled “The Writer
in Wartime,” Harold Jaffe debunks the illusory binary between
“committed or engaged writing” and “so-called autonomous
writing,” which he says is a “quintessential” American notion. In
other countries, he points out, committed writing does not face
“condescension.” Jaffe debunks as nonsense the argument that
writers need independence from events in the world to maintain artistic
integrity. He says that the “restrictive imaginative repertory”
(no political themes) of MFA programs and many journals and presses
does not make a writer independent, but the opposite. Jaffe cites
South African Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee’s claims that all writers
should promote works of literature “as instruments of action” and
social change because “it is not in the interest of those who actually
wield power to disabuse anyone” of the idea that literature is ineffective,
just idle people playing with words while the powerful make decisions
about real issues (3, 6).
It is always wartime and the writer is never autonomous. Poetry is
thus always “a reflection of and a response to contemporary culture”
(Jaffe 3). But a question persists: What authority do poets have to
write about war, genocide, poverty, capitalism, globalization, and
other issues? Jaffe’s suggestions, to me, are incomplete. He says that
writers have authority from three primary conditions: they have freedom
from a 9 to 5 job and thus more time to think, they are not
“beholden” to “benefactors,” and they can publish and thus distribute
their ideas to readers (3). I believe, however, that writers have no
more authority than other citizens to speak about injustice. They are
simply better at the speaking than other citizens, so they have a type
of authority from their creative talents. Yet discussing a writer’s
authority misses the point. The issue is not authority but power. Who
has the power to speak? This is why it is crucial that at least some poets
and rappers stay engaged with geopolitical and sociopolitical realities.
They have powers that most citizens do not. They do not have the
power of CEOs, bankers, politicians, filmmakers, and the wealthy, but
poets and rappers have the power of their voices and visions, and if
they can make it through the interferences of the corporate world, the
potential ability to disrupt the hegemony of that world.
When we speak of authority in debates about poetry’s usefulness, we
mean power. And I think that there is an underlying fear of poets, rappers,
and artists gaining traction against elite corporate and governmental
forces that control the flow of ideas. I end then with Charles
Molesworth’s rhetorical questions about Gary Snyder’s “authority” as