'Poetry is always political'. Poetry International explores 'framing'

Is the language of poetry still free from ideology and manipulation? Or is it nonsense to think that poetic language escapes framing, the ideological loading of words? That is the main theme of this year's Poetry International poetry festival, which kicks off on Tuesday 7 June.

Next week, as every year, Rotterdam will be the Mecca of poetry lovers. For five days, from Tuesday 7 June to Saturday 11 June, the city will be dominated by poetry and the public can listen to readings, lectures and debates with Dutch and foreign guests, well-known and new talent. This year's guests include Anneke Brassinga, Maarten van der Graaff and Belgian poet Ruth Lasters, in addition to Ann Vickery (Australia), Lisa Robertson (Canada), Jeet Thayil (India), Luis Chaves (Costa Rica) and many, many others.

Frame by Frame

Poetry International's theme is topical and revolves around 'Newspeak[hints]'.Newspeak is a fictional language at George Orwell's novel 1984. It is a language created and controlled by the totalitarian state as a tool to restrict freedom of thought and concepts that pose a threat to the regime, such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, and peace. Any thinking that might deviate from the Party's concepts is considered "thoughtcrime" ("thought crime")[/hints]', elaborated in the programme sections 'Frame by Frame' and 'NeuParle Nuevo'.

In Frame by Frame, poets explore the extent to which poetry is influenced by framing, in which a speaker or writer imbues his words with a particular thought or idea about identity, without the 'recipient' being aware of it.

Swedish poet Aase Berg, participating in Frame by Frame, sees examples abound in everyday life. 'Management language, for example, affects ordinary language, forcing us to sell out our personality in a market dominated by narcissism and false desires created by the advertising industry. Or take Facebook's like button - which is more than just a thumbs up, a button that signals your appreciation. Our lives have become dependent on it, revolve around the desire to garner as many likes as possible.'

Poetry is not free from those influences, Berg thinks, neither is her own poetry. 'But I am aware of the pitfalls, allowing me to use "poisoned" language for sarcasm or debunking things. For instance, I wrote a satire in which I have a group of chickens speak marketing language because they want to exercise capitalism and gain control over the universe. An attempt which, as you will understand, does not end well.'

Aase Berg always likes to incorporate new expressions and terms into her poems, as in her latest collection, in which she uses hacker language. 'In this collection, I explore the possibility of Trojans in everyday life, how systems can be attacked and destroyed from the inside. It's not just about hacking computers, but also about parasites hacking a human body or feminist strategies fighting the patriarchy we take so much for granted.'

Thus, according to Swedish, the language of poetry is definitely not neutral, rather the opposite, but is also many times more intelligent than manipulative language. 'Poetry offers the chance to reveal manipulation instead of hiding it. And if you don't seize that chance as a poet, you are an idiot and should do something else. If all you want is beauty, buy a new dress or a new chair, or go swimming with dolphins, but stay away from poetry,' she says fiercely. 'Poetry is always political, albeit not always explicitly so.'

NeuParleNuevo

Her Australian colleague Ann Vickery participates in the NeuParleNuevo section, which focuses on urban language and its influence on poets and their ways of expression. Vickery, who besides being a poet is also a teacher at university and thus sends and answers endless emails, explores the language of the internet and social media in her poetry work. 'My poem "I Knew a Woman" is about how social media like Facebook create a form of public intimacy, and how obsessive use of social media can become. Social media encourages a new form of voyeurism and gossip, and also emphasises that being happy is the goal in life. Whether "screen lives" are better, more complete lives, however, is debatable. My poem suggests that this may ultimately lead not only to flattening and numbing, but also to depression, "the daily blue", as I call it. My poem explores the question of whether the 'real self' as displayed on social media is not actually fantasy images that we share with each other.'

Vickery finds it exciting and funny to use new words and expressions that the internet and mobile phones have spawned in a poetic context. In the poem 'Un4seen Fxs', for example, she plays with abbreviated language, giving it multiple meanings. And with the automatic spell checker that tends to make a mess of our text messages. 'The first sentence reads: Typographical err Or makes me you live more/peach day, alluding to the typographical errors in "err Or," "live," and "peach". Correct, after all, would be: Typographical error makes me love you more each day." I was curious whether a romantic mood would be autocorrected or altered. In addition, I wanted to explore how bonds between people are expressed in social media. In the poem, I use images related to transparency and screens.'

Anne Vickery hopes that her use of language and way of expressing herself will continue to develop and grow. 'I am enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by urban language, and try to explore them with humour. I do this, for example, by combining new words with words full of cultural tradition and history. In one poem, I make fun of the political correctness of some eco-poems, while pointing to climate change and the fact that we need to rethink our "heritage". Language is always political in nature. I am particularly interested in the way street language challenges and challenges dominance language.'