Buneeri, Shaheen. "Poetry Fights Back." Boston Review. 37.1 2012. 8-9. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 March 2012
"Poetry Fights Back" details a cultural war going on within Afghanistan between the Taliban and the millions of Pashtuns within the country. The Taliban has more tightly controlled social behavior in the country since the 1990s deliberately depriving "people of secular outlets in order to accelerate the spread of religious extremism." The article describes the Pashtuns as being democratic and secular and that poetry is their weapon of expression that "challenges the Taliban mindset." Much like Tomaz Salamun, the Pashtuns are another example of how poetry is valued a lot higher by some other cultures. Young people in Afghanistan use poetry to understand and hold onto their national identity amongst so much sectarian violence. The poetry is also very political a means of protest directed at an international audience. One poet Akbar Siel writes:
Don't snatch the pen from our hand
With which we make the picture of
our dreams
Don't create violence in our village
Don't bring mayhem to our village
...
Don't turn this ancient playground
into a blood-red ammo dump
Another common theme in Pashto poetry is grief and the promotion of secularism. The poet Zarin Pareshan writes:
You religious fundamentalists stop this bloodshed
Humanity is the best religion; Love, the best worship
Because of this war I despise the "dear Mullah"
Love is my religion; Unity is my faith
"Pashtun Poets don't just want a return to secular values but they want the world to know it." More than a hundred books of Pashto poetry were published in first half of 2011.
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Yeh, Michelle. "Anxiety & Notes on the Recent Chinese Poetry Scene." World Literature Today. 81.4 2007: 28-35. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 March 2012.
"Anxiety & Notes on the Recent Chinese Poetry Scene" details the decline of poetry in China in the past few decades. As the country is getting richer people are losing interest in poetry and turning to more visual entertainment such as T.V. and video games. However, there is still "meteoric popularity of sentimental love poetry and uplifting verse epigrams." The avant guard poetry that does exist has been more political though. Through economic expansion, not political democratization, a larger space of civil liberty seems to exist for Chinese artists. And literary events don't seem to be a problem for government authorities. Financial security is on the rise for poets as well, at first correlated to the country's economic success but now is on the wane due to lack of readership. China does not have university degrees in creative writing but there are "about a dozen" poet professors in the country. Publishing a book is tightly controlled by the gov. as all books are required to have a ISBN number on them and the gov. oversees publishing houses. However, there is a black market of ISBN numbers in existence. Censorship is heavily in place. A poet can publish a journal as long as it isn't too political. The internet has become an outlet for poets recently and has served to unite Chinese poets with their neighbors in Hong Kong and Taiwan and all over the world. As a result, international themes have arisen in contemporary Chinese poetry. This has led to criticism that it is too Western as well.
