Human Rights and Poetry in a Global Context

Abstract

This Special Issue titled ‘ Human Rights and Poetry in a Global Context ’ con-tains fi ve articles from a diverse range of global perspectives and contexts including Ireland, Greece, Nigeria, and Tibet. These articles focus speci fi cally on the intersection of contemporary poetry, as an engaged literary form, and human rights as a set of legal, political, and cultural discourses. Canonical publications in the interdisciplinary fi eld of human rights, law, and literature focus overwhelmingly on prose texts. This Special Issue breaks new ground by focusing speci fi cally on poetry. As Françoise Robin points out in her article here, the dominance of prose over poetry is not universal; poetry is a literary formof great antiquity and in Tibet, for example, it is still the most popular and prestigious genre. This is also true of the Irish-language tradition. Indeed, the master exten-sive knowledge and the highest-ranking jurists to acquainted poetic and the laws pertaining to poets. indication close relationship between law poetry ascertained eighth-century Irish law texts concerning the privileges and responsibilities of poets were written in metrical verse.