In his poem, “In Memory of W. B Yeats” the poet, W. H. Auden writes “For poetry makes nothing happen”. Auden is, I believe broadly correct. It is social and economic factors, for example widespread starvation which led to the French Revolution of 1789, rather than the writings of philosophers and poets. One can not, however dismiss the role writers play in shaping history. George Orwell was regarded as being a threat to the old Soviet Union (the Communist Party banned his writings along with other critics of Communism). Authors such as Orwell and Kafka did not bring down the Berlin Wall. They did, however help to expose it’s flaws and influenced those intellectuals brave enough to criticise the authoritarian governments under which they lived.

Irrespective of whether poetry (and writing in general) “makes anything happen” I, personally feel compelled to express myself in verse. In my collection of…