Poetry and the Language of Oppression : Essays on Politics and Poetics

A first-hand account of the creative process that engages with the language of oppression and with politics in our time. How does the poet become attuned to the language of the world's upheaval? How does one talk insightfully about suffering, without creating more of it? What is freedom in language and how does the poet who has endured political oppression write himself or herself free? What is literary testimony? Poetry and the Language of Oppression is a consideration of the creative process that rests on the conviction that poetry is of help in moments of public duress, providing an illumination of life and a healing language. Oppression, repression, expression, as well as their tools (prison, surveillance, gestures in language) have been with us in various forms throughout history, and this volume represents a particular aspect of these conditions of our humanity as they play out in our time, providing another instance of the communion, and sometimes confrontation, with the language that makes us human. Cover 1 Poetry And The Language Of Oppression: Essays on Politics and Poetics 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Preface 8 Acknowledgements 14 Permissions 15 Contents 18 Introduction: ‘Visiting the country of my birth’ 20 1: Sounding The Deeps Of Nature: Lyric language and the language of oppression 38 Historical Background 41 The Language of Oppression 46 The Instinctual: The Interface Between the Language of Oppression and the Language of Poetry 51 Wole Soyinka’s Poetry: The Insistence on Liberty 60 The Public Role of the Poet and the Public Recognition of the Power of Poetry 63 Conclusion: ‘Fertile Ground’ 68 2: The ‘lyric I’: Private and public narratives 71 Defining the ‘Lyric I’ 74 The Individual, the State, and the Poet-speaker 79 Poetry from Inhuman Places 86 Conclusion: Poetry as a Gift 95 3: Resettling In The English Language 100 Acknowledging the Loss 105 Writing Poetry in English 108 The Many Houses of Language 115 Poetry at the Crossroads 120 Conclusion: Breaking the Silence in Another Language 128 4: Artistic Distance And The Language Of Oppression 130 ‘A Birthday Letter’: Censorship and the Language of Family 136 Soaring Above the Pain: Rebecca Loncraine’s 147 ‘Grief’ as ‘Honest and Vibrant Enterprise’: Hisham Matar’s The Return 152 Conclusion: The Artistic Principle of Sanity 155 5: Writing In Turbulent Times 163 Meena Alexander’s ‘Invisible Grammar’ 172 An Incursion into the Mind of the Oppressor that Led to Writing a Novel-in Verse 177 Conclusion: ‘Well, You’ll Have to Change That’: Carolyn Forché’s Poetic Journey 188 Conclusion: Lumina Mea 194 Select Bibliography 202 Index 206 Poetry and the Language of Oppression is an incursion into the creative process that engages with the experience of oppression and the reclamation of freedom in the context of the Cold War. What is freedom in language and how does the poet who has endured political oppression write himself or herself free? What is literary testimony and how does it reflect one’s artistic values? How do we govern ourselves with language? Oppression, repression, expression, as well as their tools (incarceration, surveillance, exile, gestures in language) have been with us in various forms throughout history; the present discussion represents a particular aspect of these conditions of our humanity as they play out in our time, providing another instance of the communion, and sometimes confrontation, with the language that makes us human. Reflecting on the process of creating literature out of personal testimony and drawing on her own experience of political oppression and escaping persecution, Carmen Bugan explores the relationship between language and freedom.