Re: Imagination

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Charles Brown wrote:

>Doug's post implies that the poet's imagination has something to offer the
>politicaleconomic movement, no ?

Not necessarily Stevens, or even Pollitt (I'm embarrassed to admit I've
never read Katha's poetry), but yes to the poetic imagination - in evoking
a better world, providing some prefiguration of utopia in art. Not in some
literal, social realist sense - heroic paintings of the workers at Ammonia
Plant #4 leave me kind of cold. But in terms of promoting beauty and
contemplation over instrumental reason and exploitation, yes.

Doug