Description
In response to the question ‘What use is poetry?’ Meena Alexander writes, ‘We have poetry / So we do not die of history’. She adds ‘I had no idea what I meant’. In this paper, I reflect on the potential of poetry both as a research tool or method in thinking sociologically or politically, as a pedagogical device, and as a form that can often express more than we might know. The essay will draw on my own exploration of poetry as an alternative to narrative auto-ethnography or autobiography as well as the work of established and contemporary poets such as Toni Morrison, Seamus Heaney, Jay Barnard, Liz Berry, and others who seek to address social and political questions, however obliquely. A particular focus will be the work and legacy of Black British poets from the 1940s onward. I will also consider the expansion of spoken word/slam poetry and the salience of performance poets, for example, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Kate Tempest and Tony Walsh, in expanding audiences beyond poetry’s traditional reach.
