partisan of truth

The poet looks over a broad terrain and over vast stretches of time. He makes observations on the problems of his own time, to be sure, but he is a partisan only in the sense that he is a partisan of the truth. He arouses doubts and uncertainties and brings everything into question.

—Zbigniew Herbert, quoted in “Objects Don’t Lie: Talk with a Polish Poet” by Stephen Stepanchev, The New Leader, Vol. 51, August 1968, No. 16.

explicit, concrete, partisan

Politically conscious poets tend to be more profound, not less. Look again at the record. In our own time the three most formidable poets, it seems to me, were intensely "political": the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, Vallejo and Brecht (as poet). Political in the most explicit, concrete, partisan way. What's more, their aesthetic achievement is because of their politics, not in spite of it. The most credible, full, caring love poetry has been written by one of the most expressly political poets. I refer, again, to Hikmet. In part this is because he can, and does, write of the other—who is never merely an excuse for self-immersion, and who is not reduced, either, to the condition of a delicious ahistorical object.

—James Scully, "Remarks on Political Poetry," Line Break: poetry as social practice (Bay Press, 1988)

no penalty for poems

In Our Time

In our period, they say there is free speech.
They say there is no penalty for poets,
There is no penalty for writing poems.
They say this. This is the penalty.

—Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980)

consolation of poetry

Poets and intellectuals–who are paid little, and who are usually ignored by the general population–have this consolation, at least: they are the ones the tyrants go after first.

—Frederick Smock, “Poetry & Compassion," Poetry and Compassion—Essays on Art and Craft (Wind Publications, 2006)

political poetry

there is a truth behind the assertion that poetry and politics don't mix, but one so warped it turns on itself. The truth is that much of what is called political poetry...is hackwork. From this comes the generalization that politics destroys poetry. Yet isn't that an arbitrary conclusion? Most any kind of poetry is hackwork, is slipshod, undemanding of itself. The work of idle hands that are maybe not idle enough. When you come upon an inept love poem you aren't likely to conclude that love and poetry don't mix. You may think the poet a bad poet, or even a callow person. And you may pass judgment on the work. But you won't jump to generalizations about the incompatibility of love and poetry.

—James Scully's "Remarks on Political Poetry," Line Break (Bay Press, 1988)