The Politics of Poetic Form

"The Politics of Poetic Form" contains 15 essays that changed to face of poetry and launched a new way of thinking about how the mechanisms of poetry make meaning. The relation of poetry to public politic is usually assumed to be secondary. Poems are imagined primarily to express personal emotions; if political, they are seen as articulating positions already expounded elsewhere. In contrast poetry can be conceived as an active arena for exploring the most basic questions about political thought and action.