Title: Defining the Role of Poetry in Society: The Ongoing Conversation – Tufts Poetry Awards
Headings: Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Blog
Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Blog
May 10, 2017
Defining the Role of Poetry in Society: The Ongoing Conversation
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Content: as of 2015 only 5% of funding for Latinx and African-American arts organizations came from individual donations. Since poetry is focused on relaying experience in a highly salient way, there is great potential for it to be utilized as a means to build empathy and bridge gaps of understanding between people who come from differing backgrounds. In this way poetry can be a vehicle for messages of social justice. However, this is not to say the sole purpose of poetry is to serve as social commentary. In a highly thought-provoking piece, the Poetry Foundation interviewed a few poets to probe their thoughts concerning the societal role of poetry. Stephen Burt, poet and professor at Harvard University–and former Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards judge–explains: “ Compared to the writing of poetry, few other human activities take place so widely, at least in America, absent even a tacit consensus as to why we do them, what good they do, [and] what function they serve.” Poet Daisy Fried expands upon the idea: “ But politically-alert poetry is no more intrinsically useful than any other poetry…the kind of poetry written to make us feel better, for example” along with poet and professor Major Jackson: “ The function of poetry is that it does not have any function beyond its own construction and being-in-the-world.”