Why Poetry Is Like Politics
Because the connotations of words lean on the heart
Because homegrown examples hit harder than flowery abstractions
Because repetition is an anchor, and repetition holds
Because spoken truth may not be literal truth
Because you cannot tell a reader how to read a poem
any more than you can tell a person their experience is wrong
Because emphasis and pacing jolt like caffeine
Because performance, in the end, is key
Because of straight white men
Because speaker and persona blur into one
Because I, Anna M. Evans, am both poet and politician
Because it is possible to make complete bullshit sound profound
Anna M. Evans currently teaches poetry at West Windsor Art Center and English at Rowan College at Burlington County. Her latest collection, States of Grace, is just out from Able Muse Press. Her other books include her latest chapbooks, The Quarantina Chronicles (Barefoot Muse Press, 2020) and The Unacknowledged Legislator (Empty Chair Press, 2019), along with Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic (Able Muse Press, 2018), and her sonnet collection, Sisters & Courtesans (White Violet Press, 2014). She is the Board President of the Poetry by the Sea Conference and the editor of the online poetry journal for women formalists, Mezzo Cammin.