Poetry as Symptom

The relentless return of the notion that poetry is an experience of truth should be read as a symptom of the impossibility of both experience and truth except as domains that are separated from the everyday.

The character of such declarations becomes even clearer when poetry is attributed political valence, as an existential act that is also a commitment to others, as in this article.

 "Poetry is always a form of political intervention, since it creates a reader who is interested in other people, in relations between experience and truth."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/donald-trump-poetry-nick-laird-don-paterson-zoo-of-the-new

The fact that the author of this anthology is promoting it at the time of publication, suggests that “experiential value” and “exchange value” have become indistinguishable. But this equivalence is what remains hidden from experience, truth and politics.

At the exact moment when poetry is declared to be at once experience, truth and politics, its power is reduced to exchange value.