| No Politics Beyond This Point I’ve written and rejected at least three blog ideas this month. I’ve roundfiled, probably permanently, interesting issues such as appropriate levels of administration (or, to some: “censorship”) at high-school sponsored poetry readings, the ridiculous backlash against the “misleading content” of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”, the blogsplosion around the upcoming presidential election (now amplified by the death of President Reagan) and the creative essaying that’s churning on BOTH sides of BOTH candidates. But I don’t want to get political, and it’s very hard to write about issues like these without becoming political (read: blinded by your own opinion). There are lots of reasons I want to stay out of political debate here. I’ll spare you most of them in favor of the most important: Politics has nothing to do with the quality of anyone’s writing. In the last week I’ve read some great work that I’ve disagreed with and some garbanzoburgers that were right up my philosophy. So to speak. But this space is supposed to be about the art of writing. I fear this gets too easily lost when a writer uses his or her craft as a weapon in a political struggle. Sure, there are necessary places for political writings: NY Times, Washington Post, US News, etc. all have their columns and their op-eds and in those arenas, excellent political writing is important. But that’s not what my forum here is about. Opinion can drag us too easily toward hyperbole. For example, in a poetry hosts forum that I participate in, the above-mentioned high-school sponsored poetry reading controversy became a series of “all speech is free, you expletiving expletive!” posts interrupted with increasingly aggravated “yes, but” statements. Passionate, eloquent defenses of the First Amendment were posted. They were great writing, but they were way, way off-point. A high school is not a free assembly. Instructors are not free to advance unrestricted ideas. It’s not a First Amendment issue. What’s worse: a subject germane to a group of artists who host poetry readings (What is reasonable influence for a facility or sponsor to have over the arts your events present?) got buried under what was, essentially, activism. Which, last I checked, was NOT a requirement for membership in any of the major poetry societies, although many seem to assume that it is. Great causes are not, necessarily, great art. Great art is, believe it or not, not always made for the cause. So I’ve decided this page will be a politically neutral zone. And yes, I know that’s impossible. How does the saying go? Something like: Politics is inevitable in any group of three or more. It goes without saying that someone will read this and hear “He’s not willing to make waves”, someone else will want to yell “All art is activism!” and someone else will go to Google and search on “high school first amendment” so they can make a more educated set of comments than mine. None of which is what I’m after as a writer. I’m after the Hmmm. I’m after that moment when you start to laugh, or sigh, or clap, or all at the same time, but you don’t do anything right away because there’s the slightest motion of a new idea in your head and you don’t want to move too suddenly and scare it away. You won’t get there if you’re violently disagreeing with me, or if you’re already agreed with me, for that matter. You need to be listening thoughtfully to me, and I need to be speaking thoughtfully to you -- speaking in a way you, dear reader, are ready to hear. Next up: Why I read books by poets I don’t care for. If you stayed with me this far down the page, you’ve already got my answer.
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