Ambrose Bierce (Poet Or Political Activist?)


By Dennis L. Siluk
Apr. 19, 2005

I’ve read Ambrose Bierce’s historical short stories concerning the Civil War, and some were most interesting; and I am sure he was a good reporter during that era--likewise; but a poet he wasn’t. I am not sure if political poetry is of any use to anyone, which I find tucked away between almost every stanza of every poem; so I say again, a political activist he was with his poetry; and not sure if it is of any use to a reader of poetry: lest they find themselves hard up for poetry. I have never found any use for it, nor has anyone else I know. Robert Bly, whom is a real Poet, has used it to get his protest and view on and for the Iraqi War across, which spoiled if not soiled his skills and reputation in so doing so; they do more damage to poetry than good. But than folks like Don Swaim, feels real poets like George Sterling, are a lesser breed than he, not sure if he has written any poetry, or just read it, but he feels qualified to degrade him; he says in so many words: if he had wrote like George Sterling he might have committed suicide himself (how kind he is with his unfamiliar spirit, leading him); Ambrose Bierce did similarly (suicide), he disappeared into South America, why? I would guess, for the same reason Sterling committed sucide, to lock himself up in a world he couldn not endure outside (kind of like, having a house without windows); But then, maybe Mr. Swaim is ahead of the game and knows more than all of us, that being, the art of poetry, imagary, and even more than his beloved Ambrose Bierce, who felt Sterling was his superior in poetry; glory to the hound-dogs.

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