Poetry as Resistance
When I was a student at Boston University’s Poetry Program, poet Adam Zagajewski visited one of our workshops. He spoke with us about Czeslaw Milosz and the criticism Milosz faced in Poland for writing about beauty in the face of oppression instead of composing protest poetry. He was an internationally renowned poet, after all, and many Polish poets thought he should use his platform to resist loudly.
Zagajewski told us that for Milosz making something beautiful was a political statement. The act of creating something particular, of affirming human existence, counteracts the machinery of oppression, which thrives on homogeneity and in creating an “us” versus “them” instead of acknowledging — let alone celebrating — our diversity and the beauty of individuality.
During difficult times, especially during periods of social or political upheaval, we often ask: What is the role of the artist? Isn’t it self-indulgent to write poetry when there are “real” problems out there in the world that we should be solving?
Yet during these times, poets are often the first to be targeted.
Why?
Poetry is, by its nature, personal. When faced with a politics of dehumanization, poetry shows that we are not faceless Others but individuals.
We need protest poetry just as we need poems that witness terror and atrocities. But writing poetry is, more broadly, an act of resistance.
Poetry continues a conversation that has lasted for thousands of years across cultures and continents.
Poetry connects us to each other so that we can share our humanity.
Poetry affirms life in our richly diverse voices.
Poems for connection and inspiration
Won’t You Celebrate with Me by Lucille Clifton
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
Every day as a wide field, every page by Naomi Shihab Nye
A Center by Ha Jin
Turtle Mountain Reservation by Louise Erdrich
Class Activity
Read one of the poems above aloud. The first time, everyone should simply listen. Then have one or two others read the poem aloud to hear the same words in different voices.
Without discussing the poem as a group, ask everyone to write down what made an impression on them: A particular image or phrase? The sounds or rhythms of the words? Something else?
Share these impressions as a group.
Discuss: What is beautiful in the poem? How might this beauty serve as an act of resistance? What, if anything, is being resisted?
Writing Prompt
Set a timer for five minutes.
Freewrite a list of things or moments you find beautiful. Be generous in your definition of “things” and “moments” and “beauty.”
After the five minutes, take an additional minute to review your list and mark what is most immediately evocative to you.
Select one and compose a short poem of no more than sixteen lines in which you describe what you find beautiful.
