Poetry and the Ethics of Global Citizenship

Abstract

In her article "Poetry and the Ethics of Global Citizenship" Monique-Adelle Callahan argues that the recent work of poets Jorie Graham and Yusef Komunyakaa suggests the emergence of an archetypal poet who transgresses boundaries of place and time through measured wandering amongst cultures and histories. Graham and Komunyakaa offer a poetic discourse on the relationship between poetry and citizenship in an increasingly global world. Through a close reading of excerpts from Graham's 2012 Place and Komunyakaa's 2011 The Chameleon Couch, Callahan uses the paradigm of the poet-as-prophet to articulate the position of the poet vis-à-vis the geopolitical spaces she occupies. Callahan argues Graham's and Komunyakas's poetry evinces a certain nostalgia for place while at the same time delineating the existential space of placelessness. In this sense, their writing compels us to recognize an emerging shift in identity politics as it relates to both national and individual bodies.