Poetry Debates I: “The Politics of Poetry” – a review

21 December 2021

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The first “Poetry Debates” series held in the fall examined how contemporary poetry addresses cultural and sociopolitical issues in four public events organized under the title “The Politics of Poetry.” Scholars and poets put their views and work up for discussion in lectures, readings, and podium discussions. Claudia Benthien conceptualized and curated the series.

 Due to the Corona pandemic, there were some restrictions to attending the four events in person, but this was compensated for by a live stream. The events were also recorded. Links to the videos on Universität Hamburg’s Lecture2Go portal are available on the project website in the section “Audio and video material”.

The first event dealt with questions of the public sphere and the urban space that are thematized in poetic installations. Claudia Benthien (Hamburg) and Norbert Gestring (Oldenburg) gave an account of their literary studies and urban sociology research into this topic and presented international poetry projects in which poems are displayed on facades and billboards, pinned to trees on notes, or presented on public LED displays. The poet Ulrike Almut Sandi (Berlin) provided insights into augenpost, her poetic interventions in the Leipzig urban space, and #audiblepoetry in the metropolises of India. The podium discussion revolved around the political slogan “right to the city,” considered how subjective poetic modes of address can provoke readers in the urban space, for example in Jenny Holzer’s work, and inquired into the relationship between advertising and poetry.

Magdalena Korecka from the PoetryDA team provided an introduction to the second debate – sociopolitical activism in social media poetry. Two poets who publish their work on Instagram were guests at the event. Nikita Gill (Hampshire) presented anglophone poems that, for instance, interpret the mythological female figure of Medusa as feminist and criticize sexual violence against women. Elena Calliopa (Munich) presented her feminist, inclusive, and anti-racist poems, which also pick up on taboo topics such as female eating disorders. Korecka illustrated the difference between activist and micropolitical posts. There was a critical discussion of the aesthetics, style, complexity, and reach of poems on social media, which also asked why women on the one hand and minorities on the other are particularly active in social media poetry.

 Antje Schmidt (Hamburg) held the introductory lecture to the third event, “Eco-Criticism in Poetry.” While she argued that poetry in the Anthropocene often takes the gesture of a melancholy lament mourning lost species and a bygone oneness with nature, Hans Kristian Rustadt (Oslo) highlighted how poetry depicts “potential futures” in light of climate change in order to negate the causality of past, present, and future. The poet, artist, and musician Johannes Heldén (Stockholm) used his multimedia works Evolution, Encyclopedia, and Astroecology to demonstrate his approach to the topic, showing how his poetry “travels from the future to the past” to report on what is coming. Discussions revolved around the question of how poetry, due to its experimental character, can allow us to experience the end of the Earth as we know.

 The fourth debate looked at the example of Belarus to address the potential of poems as political interventions. Alessandro Achilli (Milan) pointed to social media as a space of artistic articulation and demonstrated that the protests being voiced by Belarussian poets are also directed at Europe, which they accuse of being too passive. The poet Uljana Wolf (Berlin/New York) explained the significance of poetic language in critical negotiations of identity, nationality, and territoriality, and when it comes to depicting circumstances “with no mother tongue.” The poet Julia Cimafiejeva (Graz/Minsk), currently living in exile, presented important poems on this topic. She emphatically made the audience aware of the catastrophic situation in the country, specifically in its prisons. This discussion was also about the function of poetry as a means of providing comfort and expressing inner strength and resistance.

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The next Poetry Debates series will take place in fall 2022, once again at Universität Hamburg and at selected event locations in the city. The topic will be “Poesie und Technologie / Poetry and Technology.” Information will be published in due course on this website.