Responding to Waldrop - Neal

One of the many theses presented by Rosemarie Waldrop in Alarms and Excursions is that “poetry has social relevance” and “can make the culture aware of itself, unveil hidden structures”. Waldrop argues in her second thesis that poetry, even of the most personal kind, is not simply for personal use; instead, poetry is useful for society as a whole, even if the subject or content of some of that poetry is extremely personal or subjective to a singular identity within that society.

In order for we readers to understand exactly what Waldrop means by this thesis, we must both distinguish the definitions she puts to or implies with her terminology as well as simultaneously delve into her excursions and alarms on the thesis. Waldrop clarifies what she means by poetry having “social relevance” in the second part of her thesis: poetry enlightens a society about itself, puts to words what seems otherwise inexpressible, and is indicative of social change. In her excursion on this thesis, she contemplates “the borderline between private and public”, and comes to the conclusion that it is indeed “very elusive”. She explains her dilemma, saying that one thought is that something must have a measurable effect upon a public society in order to have public or societal importance, but an opposing thought is that essentially anything that a person does has a social effect, given that said person is a member of a society.

She ultimately decides that poetry does indeed always have public, societal importance. She compares it to love: “what could be more private than making love – but if you are not careful, and the couple is heterosexual, it may produce a citizen”. She continues that even if poetry initial seems utterly personal, such as poetry written about personal emotions, that poetry still maintains societal importance because even personal emotions and feelings affect a society’s actions and functionality.

The second part of Waldrop’s second thesis, that poetry illuminates “hidden structures” and unknown facts about a society to itself, is also helped by this thought. If even the most personal of thoughts or ideas in poetry help society as a whole, then certainly those thoughts help members of a society to understand themselves and their part within the society as well. Simply “acknowledging the importance of the emotions” helps to make a society more cognizant of itself. The acknowledgement of emotions, in addition to other concepts, can often lead to a questioning of certain norms or ideas held by a society and/or a deeper understanding of the relationship between those emotions or concepts and the society to which they are tied.

Waldrop even goes so far as to quote a man, Edmond Jabes, so as to present the idea the poetry of this questioning nature is not merely questioning but actually very subversive. She backs up this idea of poetry being subversive by citing Jabes further in her first alarm of the thesis. His ideas present that nearly any, possibly every, single act we commit is a subversion of something else. Therefore, to write or read poetry becomes a challenge to “every sentence written”.