Time for poetry: poetry and time

When asked to blog this month, I went back to see what I’d been blogging about last year and in previous years. I was perturbed, at first, to find that my concerns of previous posts—what can poetry do? what do I want my poetry to do? what does it mean to write an occasional poem at this point in history? are all poems occasional? how can I live “mindfully” in the present but not live too much in my very full mind? how can I write more overtly political poems, more socially meaningful poems?—still preoccupy me today. Either I have a tendency to perseverate or these are complex questions—maybe both. This constellation of questions, I notice, has to do with time which leads me to this question I’ve started asking at every post-poetry reading Q & A and to any poet gracious enough to take the time to answer it.

Is it more important to you that your poems be timeless or timely and why?

I invite any Harriet bloggers who feel like answering my question to post a response, and I’ll be posting the responses of poets I’ve asked as well as my own thoughts about this question.