Charles Olson started working on poetry after he dropped out of his job as apparatchik for Democratic Party, right? Or something like that. With a sense of disillusionment.

Someone could do a history poem (in Olson & WCW vein) based on investigations & juxtapositions of "democracy" as global phenomenon, as a project of states & multinational groupings - "democracy in Middle East/Asia/Africa/South America" etc. - juxtaposed, that is, with historical roots in New England local politics (sovereignty of the people out of village town meetings). What it all means to have a superpower on a democracy mission compared to the felt reality of actual civic life (what that used to mean, what it amounts to now).

(Been reading de Tocqueville lately.)

I might even try doing this myself, if you don't get there first.