July 4th is a date of great importance for the United States of America, from Alaska to Hawaii. It is the date when the American nation was essentially born, the date of independence of the American colonies from Great Britain. On July 4th, 1776, in fact, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, with which the 13 former British colonies became the original core of the United States of America.

The spirit of independence that led to the birth of the nation is still today a sacred fire that burns daily in the hearts of American citizens, as if it were the one guarded by the vestals of ancient Rome, and it is a fundamental trait of the culture under the Stars and Stripes flag.

On this day I consider it appropriate to reflect precisely on the theme of independence and on its importance not only for the American people but above all for the “literary people” and specifically for those of poetry. Verses and rhymes, in fact, can and, in my opinion, must continue to be a means of maintaining cultural independence, to escape the dangerous conformity of thought that we see more and more often in today’s society. In my way of understanding the things of life, the essence of poetic composition is the free and independent, but never anarchic, expression of the poet’s thoughts and emotions through the rules of poetry.

The poet, for me, is therefore someone who, ideally being part of the population of those thirteen colonies, does not bend their ideas to whoever is in power but fights to achieve and maintain their independence of thought, because without it, without their daily July 4th, they end up betraying the essence of poetry, which should never be partisan, except to itself, and never courtly.

More and more often, instead, I find myself reading submissive verses by poets or courtly bards who have replaced the muse of poetry with the patron of the moment, selling to the highest bidder the divine gift of being able to express oneself in verses and rhymes.

Court poets have always existed, but perhaps in the past it was often possible to read between the deliberately hyper-celebratory lines of the supposed qualities of whoever was in power, what was in fact a harsh critique, disguised to save appearances. In this way those poets maintained their independence, even if only those able to read between the lines could understand the real state of things. Nowadays, instead, I increasingly see a lack of independent thought, with the result that verses often become nothing more than flat celebratory caricatures, without any critical intention, and this, in my opinion, is a real cultural danger for a free society. Without a daily July 4th, the poet abdicates their function as a cultural guide and, with their poetry, becomes an accomplice of power, legitimizing its misdeeds, and wasting the divine gift that has been granted to them.