Asked to contribute a poem for a special issue of "Poetry" to be about the Vietnam war, Bunting, conscientious objector in the First World War, Intelligence officer in the Second, post-war diplomat replied:
Poetry does not seem
to me to have any business with politics. Whatever thoughts the war in Vietnam
puts into my head, they are not such as could well be expressed in any kind of
verse.
Everything that
happens is of ‘global importance’. The follies of the United States are not
more global than those of any other country, not excepting North Vietnam.
Military follies are not more disastrous than economic, social, moral or
literary follies. So Long as
Europe and America agree to worship
Mammon all the disasters will get worse
steadily, and the deadliest ones are slower and make fewer headlines than a
war.
There’s not a soul who
cares twopence what I or any other poet thinks about the war, Nixon, Wallace,
marijuana, pills, oil spills, detergent advertisements or the fog from Gary. We
are experts on nothing but arrangements and patterns of vowels and consonants,
and every time we shout about
something else we increase the contempt the public has for us. We are
entitled to the same voice as anybody else with the vote. To claim more is
arrogant.
So I won’t be
contributing to your special issue.
Poetry, Vol. 120, No. 6 (Sep., 1972), pp. 361-365
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20595781
