We've set up
this site as a haven for political poems—a category that, while it may be
arguable ("everything is political" vs. "politics is a science,
and thus strictly subject to specific rules and constraints"), won't be argued
here. Our intention is to make this a scene that is open for a wide variety of
efforts to express (roughly) political feelings imaginatively. There are quite
a few venues (including the personal website) for sounding off in
straightforward or theoretical prose about one's political beliefs, while a
great many sites established for publishing poems still give the impression
that poets' political feelings are unsuited to public view—there's something
unseemly, and perhaps uncouth, about this writing that frequently reflects deep
anger, and that can seem raw, scornful of decorum, and insensitive to much that
poets often take to be important in their work.
Without picking any argument whatsoever with
that point of view—in fact, it's correct, but, in this application, trivial—we
want to invite submissions of political poems for publication on this site.
There are no constraints on submissions—feel free to send us anything you
like—but we'll only select a few poems a week, and no doubt those poems will
reflect our own personal biases as well as limitations placed on us as
employees of the State of Louisiana. We'll try to mix things up, and we'll try
to be inclusive and open. We have it in mind to respect the spontaneous nature
of much political poetry, so there may be some technical roughness in some of
the things we present. Let's see how it goes.
To
submit, send your poem in an email to jlm8047@louisiana.edu, with "PNN
Poem" in the subject line. Please do not send them as attachments. Please
send a brief author bio as well. We make no claims on poems we publish—we
assume that your submitting them grants us permission to place them on our
site, and you may publish them anywhere else you please. We will also remove
them from our site at your request, or according to our own needs. Please don't
hesitate to let us know what you think about the site.
Go to Archive for Authors and Poems
@2002, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
This site designed and maintained by The Creative Writing Concentration
of the English Department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
To contact us by mail: Director of Creative Writing, English Department, Box 44691,
UL Lafayette, Lafayette LA 70504-4691; by telephone, 337-482-5478;
by email, jlm8047@louisiana.edu.
Last updated: August 31, 2002.