Between Hatred and Hope. On the Political Uses of Poetry

Welcome to the tenth class of the Versopolis Traineeship, a learning series dedicated to examining the deep entanglements between language, power and society. This session – Between Hatred and Hope. On the Political Uses of Poetry – is led by the poet, performer and cultural activist Carlos Egaña and offers a provocative exploration of poetry not merely as expression, but as a collective political force that shapes communities, mobilizes bodies and, at times, fuels both liberation and destruction.

At the center of this lecture is a radical question: Is poetry still useful today? Or is it merely a refined diversion for those who truly seek social change through strategy, ideology and non-fiction? Egaña confronts this skepticism head-on, reminding us that while political theory and essays often build the frameworks of movements, poetry works on a different frequency – shaping feeling, memory and collective imagination. From Plato’s warning about poets to today’s polarized public sphere, poets have always been perceived as both necessary and dangerous.

Drawing on Allen Grossman’s conception of the poem as a ‘record of failure’ born from a fleeting transcendent impulse, Egaña reflects on the tension between the urgency to speak and the limits of language. Yet history shows that even in this fragility, poetry exerts immense political power. From José Martí’s Dos Patrias to contemporary protest verse, poetry circulates not only as literature but as shared breath inside movements, as collective memory and as a horizontal form of political practice shaped by communities.

The lecture then turns to the way poetic devices migrate into political rhetoric itself. Anaphora, rhythm and metaphor operate as powerful tools of mobilization – whether in the emancipatory cadence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ or in the mnemonic violence of the populist slogans of Donald Trump. Poetry, Egaña shows, moves people in ways reason alone cannot – for good and for harm.

Engaging also with the linguistic legacy of Noam Chomsky, the class suggests that we operate within a form of generative poetics, an intuitive political sensitivity to when poetic function erupts in everyday speech, protest and propaganda. Poetry spills beyond books into chants, slogans and viral language, shaping collective emotion in real time.

Yet the class refuses any romanticization of activism. It speaks openly about exhaustion, compromise and the ethical dangers of instrumentalizing language. Referencing contemporary grassroots political imaginaries such as that of Zohran Mamdani, the lecture points toward modes of poetic politics that emerge horizontally – from communities rather than power centers.

The central takeaway of the class is clear and demanding: young poets who step into public life as organizers, activists or cultural workers carry a profound responsibility toward language itself. Their skill is not neutral – it is a privilege that must not be surrendered to polarization or populist hatred, but used with passion, care and ethical precision.

We warmly invite you to watch this inspiring and challenging class, to listen closely, to question your own relationship to political language, and to reflect on how poetry can continue to shape our shared present. Whether you arrive as a writer, a reader, an activist or all at once, this lecture offers a powerful space for learning, listening and re-thinking the political life of poetry today.

Further Reading:

• The Hatred of Poetry, Ben Lerner
• Selected Writings, José Martí
• Martí: Apostle of Freedom, Jorge Manach
• Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, Mahmoud Darwish
• Republic, Plato
• On Populist Reason, Ernesto Laclau
• Regime Change, Patrick Deneen
• The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Eds. Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, and Paul Rouzer
• A Testament of Hope, Martin Luther King Jr.
• Hugo Chávez, Cristina Marcano & Alberto Barrera Tyszka
• The Land of Mild Light, Rafael Cadenas
• Grenade in Mouth, Miyó Vestrini
• Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Noam Chomsky
• Virtue Hoarders, Catherine Liu