Poetry or Poltics

It's fair to say that when people think of social (even radical social) change, poetry isn't the first thing that comes to mind. The idea that we can change the world through poetry isn't heavily used, or really used at all, when it comes to social change.

After reading another post on An Army of Lovers, I was left with this idea that in order to overthrow the government, defeat capitalism, we must first fall in love and be together with one another, with out community. Is that possible? Maybe not but it's a good start.

In “A Pic­turesque Story About the Bor­der Between Two Cities,” Demented Panda and Koki spend their time sit­ting surrounded by trains and cars and trying to think of a way that a poem would do something, anything, to make any change at all in society. It seems that the poem is doomed from the beginning, until the very end of the story when the story pits destruction and creativity against each other and again, suggests that poetry and the political struggle are interrelated.

The stories themselves, to me anyways, seem to go around and around in this never ending circle of writing"mediocre" poems and really not getting much done at all. It is kind of ironic. The entire book seems to ask the question is it worth getting up and actually doing something joining in the struggle against politics and capitalism, or is it better to stay, lay on our mats and make poems?