"Poetry shall not serve": Poetry and Political Resistance

Abstract

The term resistance literature should be applied to all forms of poetry that voice opposition to oppression and not just, as Barbara Harlow defended, those engaged in the anti-colonial fight of the sixties. Consequently, this essay looks at poems by Langston Hughes, Fredrick Seidel, Adrienne Rich and Suheir Hammad, as clear examples of how poetry resists political, racial, and economic oppression.