This study investigates the production of political meaning in the Scandinavian tradition of the dagsvers (newspaper poem), that is a particular kind of poetry published in daily newspapers, commenting on public debates and recent events. The dagsvers is a neglected literary genre in the history of Swedish literature. The often explicit political stance and message of the dagsvers separate this genre from many other forms of modern and contemporary poetry, and the present study focuses on this political dimension. I examine the uses of forms, themes and symbols in dagsvers published between 1949 and 2013 that give the poems their meaning and their political dimension. Furthermore, I analyse how the very newspaper medium contributes to and directs the interpretation of the poems. The main questions pertain to how context, such as the newspaper´s political agenda, and elements in the text create the meaning and function of the dagsvers. Analysing verse examples with the help of theories of Jacques Rancière and Lars Furuland, the study demonstrates how the context and the literary forms, themes and symbols impact the shape of the political dimension of the dagsvers.