Can poetry matter? Robert Frost weighs in.
Dana Gioia, poet and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, famously wrote an essay and then book called Can Poetry Matter? President John F. Kennedy weighed in on the matter decades earlier, speaking at the memorial of Robert Frost. This post comes to us via poet and classicist A.M. Juster, who writes: “Can’t really imagine any political leader saying these things today, what with the U.K. slashing humanities across the country and the U.S. continuing on with its billionaire infatuation.” Hear, hear.
That Kennedy speech is precisely discussed in the first chapter of "The Music of Time. Poetry in the Twentieth Century", by John Burnside, which I started to read a few weeks ago. Can't recommend this book enough, it's absolutely awesome.
It is hard to see any of our leaders speaking up in support of things they cannot measure, profit from, or stick in a spreadsheet cell. Kier Starmer failed to name a favourite book when asked in a softball interview, and apparently doesn't read. His Education Secretary axed subsidised Latin lessons for impoverished children half way through the academic year, apparently out of ideological spite, given how little money will be saved - so the students will need to find private support if they want to sit the exams in the summer.