Poets have ,with their poetry ,often been a mirror to their contemporary soceity.The WW1 poets and the late Seamus Heaney(Nobel prixe winner) being good examples ,the latter thereof with some of his later work
I have written a number myself of some aspects of recent times.
Such poetry perhaps is the equivalent of a letter to the newspaper columns,.They have the immediacy and often the emotion of the moment ...and yet...
can such writing ,the bird's eye view ,be too close?
do they lack a true perspective ? is the poet too involved ?
Maybe a longer view ,a retrospective , yet within their lifetime be more accurate and a fairer view .
What do you think? Do you write such poetry?
Do you use our art this way, to get things off your chest, about a contemporary issue?
UPDATE A an example at the time
Here is the kind of thing I'm thinking of in regard to WW1 ,whereby Kipling's My Boy Jack ' holds a mirror to that particular event',the link to the poem is below
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_jack.htm
UPDATE B a personal retrospective 90 years after(by yours truly)
In memorium *
He put his rifle safe,
pulled up the blanket
against the cold.The Spring
rain dripped in rivulets
down his trench wall.
The blossoms of the hops
would be just flowering
back home. He dreamed on
of the girl he met on his
last leave. In this
hell on earth, to dream
was to live, for a few
moments; to escape the
monotony of this endless
unreality. The face of
his mother, filled this dream,
Harriet was crying, whispering
her love; hopelessness had
permeated his last letter. He
awoke, suddenly with a start,
It was time; the big push
was on. The ‘final battle’
the officer had said. Perhaps
I will be on furlough for harvest,
he thought, smiling inwardly,
day-dreaming for a second
or two, he joined the line.
‘Into your hands O lord’ the
Padre’s murmured benediction
the last words, he heard.
*Albert Strand 1890-1918