Political Poem (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Amiri Baraka
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, Politics, Love or romance, Suicide, Poetry or poets, Emotions, Death or dying, Creative process, Wealth, Thought or thinking
The Poem
“Political Poem” is a fairly short poem of twenty-eight lines, divided into three stanzas, written in free verse. Despite the title, it is no more political than most of Amiri Baraka’s poems; rather, it is a poem about the politics in American poetry.
The first six-line stanza is by far the most easily accessible. It is a short meditation on the effects of luxury on thought. Basically, Baraka is saying that luxury is a way of avoiding thought. Living in luxury is like living under a heavy tarpaulin, protected from information and ideas. In such sheltered...
[The entire page is 1462 words long]
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