How we cite our quotes: (Record.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Now poetry is no longer a brazen nightingale call. Poetry is a state service; poetry is purpose. (12.9)
This presents a strong notion that power must be more than brute physical force to prevail. In this case, the State has seized the power to compose poetry—a powerful creative act—and ensures that only its ideas are expressed through the medium. Talk about a bunch of control freaks.
Quote #8
The whole world is one immense woman, and we are in her very womb, we are not yet born, we are joyfully ripening. (13.21)
The comparison suggests the power of creation, and that human beings are the result of that creation. But is that the power of the world (the State), or is it the power of an individual ("one immense woman") that the State has appropriated?
Quote #9
Assuming that "I" has the same "rights" compared to the State is exactly the same thing as assuming that a gram can counterbalance a ton. Here is the distribution: a ton has rights, a gram has duties. And this is the natural path from insignificance to greatness: forget that you are a gram, and feel as though you are a millionth part of the ton… (20.6)
Power here is a feeling, a sense of being part of something far greater than yourself. Only through solidarity can the collective act efficiently, and in order to do so, that means imparting a tiny percentage of perceived power into each and every individual in the collective. Its interconnectedness both strengthens the State and continues to exert power over those in its grasp.