The awful truth through the eyes of a poet

In this paper, an analysis of three poems addressed in a series of articles in “Poets on Poetry” Robert W. Blake examines the importance of writing poetry when dealing with the human story. It is the ability to look at humanity’s dark side in the eye and register an unedited emotional response. George Bowering’s “Martin Luther King” is angry, disillusioned and cynical as it presents the day after reaction of the author to assassination in the political world. In “Footnote to the Amnesty Report on Torture” Margaret Atwood gives a gritty punch in the gut response to the horrors of state sanctioned torture. Finally, Dumont sums up the feelings of the oppressed native against the established colonial based establishment in “The Devil’s Language”.