Poem: "CYNICISM 2.0"

A popular quote in the world of poetry is Auden's: "poetry makes nothing happen." Much celebrated contemporary poetry is political or activist in nature, sometimes called the poetry of praxis, and Auden's quote is referred to often when discussing the limits of this sort of thing. What receives too little emphasis, I've noticed, is the fact that this line is not extracted from a lecture, essay, or speach, but is itself a line in a poem, leaving those who would take it as a piece of advice or of caution with a this-sentence-is-false-esque dilemma.

It is a dilemma I find myself dealing with frequently when writing, even when I am not aiming for a political poem - or, when that is my aim, I discover that I am really writing something about myself, and then old Auden pops his head in. I think a certain level of cynicism can be ascribed to Auden's line, and I find myself working through a sense of cynicism when this line comes to mind during my writing. "Cynicism 2.0" is indeed a political poem, and it is also a poem very much about myself. I cannot say if it will make anything happen, but it helped me to have written it. Poetry's ability to do this - to help the writer - is something in which I do have faith.

The poem is out in Issue Seven of Zero Readers. You can read it here.