The ‘Lyric I’

There are two aspects of personal identity that often clash in the artistic process originating in oppression; they destabilize the voice of the ‘lyric I’. This chapter raises several questions about the relationship between personal biography and the construction of a lyric speaker, and explores the notion of a poetics that insists on healing the damage that politics does to the family; it discusses what happens when private and public identities become conflated because of politics, and how poetry ‘acts’ on the sense of family as a social microcosm where the conflict between the sense of the political self and the private self takes place.

Sounding The Deeps of Nature

The concept of oppression, just like the concept of freedom, has a narrative character: there is a narrative that accompanies every transaction of meaning taking place between all of society and the larger forces of the world. The poem and its readers partake in this narrative as well: one that is initiated by the poem, and developed by each of its readers. This chapter addresses the interface between poetry and politics in language, using the reality of oppression in order to probe deeper into the fundamental concept of freedom. The notion of freedom is discussed in the specific context of Cold War oppression and the poetry of resistance, in order to see how that notion has evolved over time. Poetry is understood as a thinking and a feeling ground on which the language of oppression (suppressive) and lyric language (expressive) come into contact, giving a deeper sense of the human condition.

Conclusion

The concluding remarks bring to the discussion the sense that behind the effort to put feelings into words there is a deeper, spiritual need to connect with language and the world, similar to a prayer arising from language and the world, and returning to them. The language to which we all have a right, and use to explain our lives to ourselves, is given to us both as a gift and a responsibility. For the author, the spiritual relationship with language is essential in establishing that sense that one can speak and write with the hope that one will be heard.

Artistic Distance and The Language of Oppression

Writing is an emotional process and it works when it makes us feel, both as writers and readers: it has the power to move—movere. Yet a certain emotional distance is necessary when one writes poetry with the language of oppression, especially when one has been the victim, and offers a historical as well as an artistic testimony. What kind of liberties can one take with the material? What constitutes appropriate artistic utterance when one navigates the territories of poetry about the hard truths? Translating screams of pain and anger into poetic expression, which shows the effect of oppression on the inner landscape of feeling, is what poetry offers as an art. But writing that courts the sympathy of the reader gratuitously, arouses anger, sermonizes, or is imbued with a sense of self-pity, represents a failure of the art. The healing aspects of writing (not only in terms of healing the writer, but also in terms of healing the language itself) form a significant part of this chapter.

Resettling In The English Language

When the native language becomes unstable, and writers are forced to abandon it, or when experience simply destroys the transaction of meaning or truth between a writer and her language, the notion of the ‘place of writing’ itself becomes destabilized and abstracted. This chapter probes the poet’s relationship with an adopted language, and offers a glimpse into the experience of writing in-between languages, hovering at the borders between them. As one re-settles in a new language, the native and the adopted languages play more complex and nuanced parts in the perception of self and of freedom, as the poet no longer defines one language in terms of another, one experience in terms of another, but seeks a language that brings feelings and experiences from both in a continuously evolving lyric.

Introduction

The Introduction situates the discussion in the present book in its historical and autobiographical contexts, and delineates the characteristics of poetry that emerges from the experience of political oppression. The major terms employed—‘the language of oppression’, ‘freedom’, and ‘artistic engagement’—are defined. Poetry, politics, freedom, and oppression are considered through their manifestations in language that governs private and public lives. While the Introduction establishes that the main argument does not proceed from views of ‘art for art’s sake’ or ‘art for social justice’, the notions of artistic commitment and the social utility of art are presented in order to explore the processes of language as they play a role in determining how people understand their place in a turbulent world, and, more importantly, how literary language helps them define, and perhaps also achieve, a sense of personal freedom.

Writing in Turbulent Times

This chapter investigates whether literature that engages with politics is, or indeed should be, political, and in precisely what sense. It discusses the difference between poetry that is profoundly political—dealing with fundamental moral issues—and simple verse propaganda. It also asks whether freedom is/should be a political concept or if it is something more personal, reaching much deeper into our nature. Looking at several effects of political realities on the artistic process, the chapter argues for the necessity to address the larger, and timeless issues such as suffering, hope, and love, rather than adopting a partisan politics in one’s literary work. In portraying the effects of turbulent politics on individual lives, literature has a unique opportunity to ponder and celebrate our humanity. It can counteract the manipulative language of propaganda, by drawing on the rich resources of a language that, through moments of political upheaval, is able to sustain, if those values which sustain can clearly be articulated.