Relational Investigative Poetics by Kristin Prevallet

I came across this wonderful essay by Kristin Prevallet found in FENCE, Spring/Summer 2003.

I enjoy how she begins with describing the political environment and how poetry can develop a relationship with political activism. As Prevallet describes it:
"Instead of buying gas masks and digging underground shelters (or moving to Canada), I turn my rage and confusion towards poetry, the unacknowledged legislation of worlds unacknowledged, to reveal both systems of knowing (content) and structures of ideology (form). Poetry, the work of radical linguistic, contextual, and metrical articulation, is a way to structure my sometimes perpendicular thought processes, transforming confusion and anger into form and meaning."

This is something Adrienne Rich confers with in her essay "Poetry and Commitment," which is also available as a small chapbook.