Poetry As Insurgent Art
Narrated by Nitin Jagdish
Maryland
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.
If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering
the challenge of apocalyptic times,
even if this meaning
sounds apocalyptic.
You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain,
you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St.
Vincent Millay, you are
Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or
a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with
words….