Poetry and the Language of Oppression : Essays on Politics and Poetics

Reflecting on the process of creating literature out of personal testimony and drawing on her own experience of political oppression and escaping persecution, Carmen Bugan explores the relationship between language and freedom.

A first-hand account of the creative process that engages with the language of oppression and with politics in our time.How does the poet become attuned to the language of the world''s upheaval? How does one talk insightfully about suffering, without creating more of it? What is freedom in language and how does the poet who has endured political oppression write himself or herself free? What is literary testimony?Poetry and the Language of Oppression is a consideration of the creative process that rests on the conviction that poetry is of help in moments of public duress, providing an illumination of life and a healing language. Oppression, repression, expression, as well as their tools (prison, surveillance, gestures in language) have been with us in various forms throughout history, and this volume represents a particular aspect of these conditions of our humanity as they play out in our time, providing another instance of the communion, and sometimes confrontation, with the language that makes us human.