american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

CONCLUSION 199
a citizen-poet because it suggests that power, not authority, is the issue
at hand. He asks, “Can Snyder claim for his (or can his readers claim
on his behalf) any authority other than that of the aesthetic realm?”
Molesworth then goes on to ask if it is possible to understand Snyder’s
“notion that trees and animals should be represented in Congress” as
“anything but an amusing [literary] conceit.” We have to believe, as
Coetzee suggests, that it is much more than a simple conceit.
Molesworth allows that Snyder’s claim might be a “serious critique of
representational government” because “banks and corporations command
a share of representative power in our legislatures, and they are no
more capable of speaking for themselves, without human mediation,
than are trees and animals.” He concludes, asking “If humans can find
a way to define the rights of a corporation, why can they not do the
same for the forest?” (154–155). What representative power do poems
and rap songs have? The power readers, listeners, critics, poets, rappers,
and citizens ascribe to them. And, unfortunately, what power corporate
moguls, politicians, and moneyed interests cede to them. As both
a critic and a poet, I am ready to give American poets who work in
print and in song the power to start the widespread shift in consciousness
needed to make this country and world a more just and equitable
place. That, after all, is faith in poetry, in the human voice itself.