Jodie--
You're probably right about the broader reach of political poetry, but the way your analysis runs requires, as you note, a different definition of "politics" than the one I and, I think, Alicia were using.
I'm a little suspicious of any broad definition of "politics" that starts to sound like the entire range of social relations: If everything is political, than the word is meaningless. But, regardless of the scope of a broader definition of the word, Alicia's query on "poetry about politicians rather than, say, political poetry" suggests that there exists a smaller use of the word to mean merely the process of running for office, campaigning, and exposing oneself to public scrutiny.
And it is this meaning of the word that defines, I think, a politics to which Western poetry has typically proved allergic. The poets themselves may have done a lot of politics, in both the broad and narrow senses of the word, but asked the general question about whether someone should enter public life, they usually say, as I quoted from Ovid: Bene vixit, bene qui latuit--To live well is to be well hidden.
Jody
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