Poetry: a bad influence?

18 januari 2006 There is general agreement that poetry may have an impact on people apart from the aesthetic. Often the symbolic function of a poem is established by accident, and quite arbitrarily. All sorts of things, songs, poems, may acquire that function, whereas excellent poems written expressly for this purpose, may never achieve this status. Poetry may also move people in other ways than politically — K. Michel cites the work of Rimbaud and Eliot’s Wasteland as examples of poetry that has had tremendous influence, although that influence is hard to define.
A discussion now ensues about the ethics of poetic influence — it may be for good or for bad, depending on the outcome of that influence in practice. Iztok Osojnik argues that if a poem inspires a war of liberation from totalitarian rule, or colonial domination, as in the case of the Achinese people, it would be hard to denounce such a poem as “bad”. In such instances, poetry functions as a positive inspiration. Poetry could be used for ideological purposes, to induce false emotions and mass hysteria in an effort to manipulate people, but on the other hand, an oppressed or endangered people may spontaneously find consolation and the strength to resist that oppression in some poem not written with that purpose in mind. So do we have to accept that poetry in itself cannot be said to be good or bad, but that it can be used either way? The political leader of the Bosnian Serbs was a poet of sorts. Does this cast doubt on poets in general? People born and bred in the liberal democracies of the West like to believe that good poetry does not incite direct action.
Gus Ferguson effectively sums up the ethical dilemma by recounting an experience he had the previous day: “I was walking around in Amsterdam with a friend and I saw an orange Magen David. My friend told me it was the emblem of Ajax Amsterdam, originally known as a Jewish football club, and that supporters of other sides they play against chant anti-Semitic slogans at them (Hamas, Hamas, put all Jews on gas). These slogans rhyme, which I take offence at, because that is the realm of poetry. The person who composed this particular slogan must have been seen by his friends as a pretty brilliant bloke, because he got the first rhyme on ‘gas’. This is the realm we are talking about, in which poetry can move masses of people, for good or for evil.... But the influence that words have, whether they are the chants of soccer hooligans or the stirring words of some populist leader that make people stand up and weep — what for? — is a mystery. God Save the Queen... that’s quite a nice poem, actually, I wish I had written it...” For a further account of the round-table discussion, click on the subjects below:

What is good poetry?
Can poetry be political?
Is popularity the mark of bad poetry?
Poetry and the internet

Participants