Poetry of Social Change, thanks to Elizabeth Austen

I love being a guest blogger. It feels like I'm guest starring on "To Tell the Truth" the TV show from childhood or fronting for a new band in town. Today I'm guest blogging for poet Elizabeth Austen, author of the superb book, Every Dress A Decision. Elizabeth asked me to write on the poetry of social change --- the same subject I will be teaching about today at 2:00 pm at Centrum. You can click here to read the post. Elizabeth will also be teaching this week at Centrum on poetry out loud.

Here is the beginning of my post:

Certain luminaries jumped immediately to mind: Carolyn Forche, Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan, Audrey Lourde, Adrienne Rich and Naomi Shihab Nye, for example. That was the easy part. But how to teach how to write a poetry of social change? What does it encompass and why does it matter? Are Brian Turner, Sherman Alexie, and Yusef Komunyakaa also social change poets because of who they are and the specific themes of their work?

1. Poetry of social change provides access to a location or cultural concern that is underrepresented not only in poetry, but in the culture at large. Before Carolyn Forche wrote about El Salvador in the 1980’s, there was no American poetry that allowed us access into that experience. Brian Turner’s Here Bullet has sold thousands - continue