Certain times cry out for political poetry.  But poetry isn’t argument, and good political poetry is rare. We will read some good political poems from different eras, such as W.B. Yeats’s “Easter 1916” on the Irish uprising against the British, W. H. Auden’s “August 1968” on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Derek Walcott’s “Forty Acres” on the election of Barack Obama. We’ll also read public poetry that isn’t quite political, such as Simon Armitage’s “The Convergence of the Twain,” about 9/11, and Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” about a brave but misguided British charge in the Crimean War. 

Don Barkin has taught a number of poetry courses for OLLI at BCC. He has degrees from Harvard College and Cambridge University. He has taught seminars for a number of years at Yale and Wesleyan. The author of four published books of poetry, he has also been a newspaper reporter and schoolteacher. 

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