Poetry, Taxes, and Interpretation
Apr. 20th, 2006 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythBilly Bragg has an album called Talking with the Taxman About Poetry. I haven't listened to the CD yet, mainly because I'm poor, but I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the title, which I think is a pretty nifty title. It turns out the title is from a 1926 poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, a Russian Futurist. You can read the poem here.
And that's the thing that made me post. See, the poem is completely different than my cool interpretation of the title was. The poem is actually talking to a taxman about poetry, while I was thinking of it more along a metaphorical line.
I mean, who talks to the taxman about poetry? That's exactly my point. If you talk to the taxman about poetry, you can't just treat him as "the taxman" and more, you have to deal with him as a person, who may or may not actually like poetry. It's not about convincing him to not be a taxman, or to make him not tax you, it's not for him. It's for you. To get past the label of taxman and deal with the person underneath. Which is totally not what the poem was about, but I think it's kinda cooler. He's a person, not just a Faceless Tool of the State. Whereas the poem's point was exactly about trying to explain poetry to a Faceless Tool of the State.
And that's the thing that made me post. See, the poem is completely different than my cool interpretation of the title was. The poem is actually talking to a taxman about poetry, while I was thinking of it more along a metaphorical line.
I mean, who talks to the taxman about poetry? That's exactly my point. If you talk to the taxman about poetry, you can't just treat him as "the taxman" and more, you have to deal with him as a person, who may or may not actually like poetry. It's not about convincing him to not be a taxman, or to make him not tax you, it's not for him. It's for you. To get past the label of taxman and deal with the person underneath. Which is totally not what the poem was about, but I think it's kinda cooler. He's a person, not just a Faceless Tool of the State. Whereas the poem's point was exactly about trying to explain poetry to a Faceless Tool of the State.
