The Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy has launched a new initiative called Poetry and Politics. The initiative aims to explore the relationship between poetic expression and democratic politics.
The center regularly hosts speakers from the fields of public policy and journalism. It supports research across undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. The goal of Poetry and Politics is to combine aesthetic and political analysis, offering deeper insights into both areas.
Owen Boynton, a literary scholar and high school teacher at the Collegiate School, is leading the program. He writes blog posts that analyze poems from a political perspective. His posts have featured works by Thomas Hardy, Percy Shelley, and Sarah Kirsch. Boynton’s aim is to help both the Andrea Mitchell Center and the broader Penn community understand how poetry can provide insights into political issues.
Boynton shared that the idea for the initiative partly stemmed from his 12 years of running a literary blog.
“It’s great to have a sense of your words reaching somebody,” Boynton said. “While I haven’t directly worked on poetry and politics before, the idea is broad enough to let me explore and learn.”
Boynton believes poetry offers valuable perspectives on political analysis.
“Poetry does something remarkable with how the world is imagined,” he explained. “The structure, language, and arrangement of words reflect a specific worldview. Politics often depends on how we imagine the world, and poetry gives a unique perspective on these political realities.”
Boynton hopes the initiative will spark deeper conversations about both poetry and politics.
“The hope is that it fosters discussions where people enjoy reading poetry, thinking about it, and considering its meaning,” he said.
Jeffrey Green, director of the Andrea Mitchell Center, emphasized that the initiative’s goals include defining the political and aesthetic value of poetry. It also seeks to explore the “political value” of free speech, recognize poetry as an alternate form of free speech, and examine the boundaries between public and private speech.
“The skills needed to appreciate poetry are relevant to democratic citizenship,” Green said. “Attention to the subtleties of others’ expressions can help us engage with fellow citizens in meaningful ways.”
Green also sees potential for the initiative to create a sense of community.
“This complements our existing programming rooted in the social sciences,” he noted. “It connects us more directly to the humanities, and already, several people have shown interest in contributing.”
Green highlighted that the poetry blog posts offer a new way to engage the Mitchell Center community. Unlike the center’s typical events, these posts can be read independently.
“This format allows us to engage in fresh ways,” he said. “If the interest grows, it may attract new participants and partners.”
Nayeli Riano, a 2017 College graduate and current Ph.D. candidate in political theory at Georgetown University, will also contribute to the blog. She was drawn to the initiative because she sees a strong connection between poetry and politics. Riano believes that the questions posed by both fields are similar, differing only in the methods used to explore them. She feels this intersection allows people to “channel different parts of ourselves” and better address global questions.
Riano is especially interested in how political thought and literature communicate struggles on individual and societal levels. She values the initiative’s focus on “centering literature” and reaching audiences who may feel disconnected from it. She hopes it will present the beauty of literature in an accessible way.
“Literature is something you can never stop studying,” Riano said.
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