... As we read it, poetry has always taken up causes. Either it be Rabindara Nath Tagore (from India) or Kaji Nazrul Islam (from Bangladesh) or Mahakavi Devkota (from Nepal), they have all written for social and political changes. Similarly, in the West, Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ Marvell’s ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return to Ireland’ and Blake’s ‘London’ are intensely political poems. Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron all responded to revolutions abroad and upheavals at home. In Eastern Europe and South America, poetry has been synonymous with resistance to state or military oppression. In our own time, close to home, poets have raised their voices to protest against injustice. The 2006 janaandolan of Nepal is a case in point where poetry was a very instrumental medium to galvanize people in the street for the protest against monarchy... Click the link Poetry and Politics to read the full article. (Source:The Independent published from Bangladesh on 12 Jan 2013)
The Way I See the World