I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.
Source: In International Herald Tribune, (Paris), 14 Oct 1988.
-- Howard Nemerov, (Mar 1 1920-1991), US poet, novelist, critic; His poetry, marked by irony and self-deprecatory wit, is often about nature; won Pulitzer Prize, 1978, for The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov.