Having recently participated in a primary election, the subject of voting rights and political activism is fresh in my mind. For anyone who is not particularly familiar with the electoral process, a primary election is open only to the members of the party who host the election. This election is held to decide which candidate will run with the support of the party. The candidate that gains the majority of the party member’s votes is selected to bear the standard for the party in the upcoming general election.

In our country, the right to vote is often seen as a dispensable and minor right. Voter turnout rates are ridiculously low for general elections and primary elections barely register on the charts of numerous individuals. At this point, most of you are probably wondering why I, a poetry editor for a literary magazine have spent this much time decrying the apathy of the American public. Poetry and politics do not seem to be likely bedfellows, but the truth is that they are.

Many of the teens that submit work to Frodo’s Notebook include with those submissions short explanatory notes. In these notes, the authors are asked to describe the style, purpose, and meaning of the submitted pieces. The pervasive force powering the majority of our young writers is a desire to find a voice in our vast society. While attempting to find this voice, most of our writers also express a need to have a tangible outlet for their views, beliefs, and emotions. Some of the letters even include desires to impact and change the faces of the variety of socio-cultural spheres from which the authors hail. Despite the various differences in age and background, each of the authors express this need for an audience quite fervently.

How, might you ask, does this have anything to do with voting? Being a politically active person parallels writing a poem and sharing it with your English class or submitting that poem to us at Frodo’s Notebook. Through each of these avenues, you are exercising your voice for others to hear. In the history of the world, some of the greatest political activists have often been by trade, writers. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian native and author of The Handmaid’s Tale is the former president of PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) Canada. PEN is an organization created to serve writers living under political oppression. As an author, Margaret Atwood found her poetic voice when she was sixteen and continues to write, her works include The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, and most recently, Alias Grace to name a few. She has also written volumes of short fiction and a vast collection of poetry.

On writing, Atwood has said, “as an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist. I don't mean there's never any overlap. You learn things in one area and bring them into another area.” As an author, Atwood has recognized her place in society as not only a storyteller, but also as a socio-politically aware citizen. She has exercised her voice through her art on behalf of numerous non-literary based causes, wielding her pen as the proverbial sword.

In her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood creates a futuristic society run by a neo-fascist oligarchy oppressive to women, minorities, and Jews. Atwood finds her heroine in Offred, an ex-career woman and mother of one who is found fertile after a great epidemic that supposedly left the majority of the world’s female population incapable of bearing children. After the patriarchal oligarchy establishes its power, various societal changes are instituted. Fertile women become handmaids, regardless of their previous responsibilities as mothers or wives. As handmaids, these women are forced to become willing mistresses to men who hold positions of esteem and power at the helm of the new regime. Their role in the new order is simply to remain breeders. Living in a new society based on a quasi-morality and cultic observances, the women in Atwood’s novel are forced to endure terrible circumstances of misogyny and subjugation. The Handmaid’s Tale, often compared to George Orwell’s, 1984, has become an unforgettable modern novel. Atwood brilliantly and terrifyingly illuminates the continuous struggle for equality and liberation of the world’s exploited population.

As authors, it is your responsibility to write about what you know, but it is also your task to write well. Writing well does not simply mean creating flawless, grammatically impeccable pieces of Nobel Prize-winning literature. Although it would be nice to win the Nobel Prize for literature, for the majority of you, a pat on the back or a handshake followed by “I really enjoyed reading…” is enough. As Jessamyn West once said, “There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.” Writing well is difficult and will take you years to master, but the mastery is worth the journey in which you will experience a variety of wonderful and terrible ideas.

This should not discourage you from writing well and from saying what you have to say to the world. As writers, you are at the helm of the socio-cultural ship that is our world. As we have learned from history, the people who have gotten things done and inspired changes to be made have been writers. The political arena is not the only place I encourage you to wield your pens, laptops, notebooks, and loose-leaf. As writers, you have the ability to be pioneers in any field, community, or place you choose. Any place where you take up your pen, or a broom, or a dishtowel is a place you can exercise your voice. I leave you with this from my favorite author:

“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

As Frodo’s Notebook begins another year of publication in a new and (hopefully) improved skin, I can only wish you all the best. Thank you for allowing us to be a forum for all of your voices. But please, do not confine those voices, (however much we may like you to) to us. Share them in as many ways, with as many people, as are willing (or sometimes unwilling) to listen.

May each of you find the words you seek to complete those seemingly deficient last lines of that poem that has been driving you crazy for weeks, and may each of you continue to be inspired to take up the pen and write.

©2002