Poetry Night
If I had a machete,
I would, like all my family, plant us a garden.
If I had a gun,
I would shoot locks off treasures, open vaults.
If I had a bomb,
I would defuse it, neutralise the very thought.
If I had power,
I'd rule it, free the passage from the start.
But if I had you,
I would be overwhelmed.
[Love Song, Jean Binta Breeze]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scene is Friday night at Marxism 2009. It's been a good day, by and large. I've met up over lunch with old friends from my more active socialist days back in Tooting, and met new people. I've been to one disappointing talk (the speaker was clearly well-read and intelligent, but a poor public speaker) and one stellar talk (given by the always excellent Chris Bambery). I'm now (having arrived a bit late) in the evening performance poetry session, with someone I got chatting to after the latter talk. The session is in memory of the radical poet Adrian Mitchell, most famous for his poem To Whom It May Concern - I encourage you to click the link.
I was mostly there to see Michael Rosen. I always appreciate his writing in The Guardian, I've enjoyed his performances on TV, and I love, love, love his poetry anthology Fighters for Life. I wanted to see him in person, to experience the full "performance". I wasn't disappointed. He was funny, both in his banter between poems and in the poems themselves, and the audience belly laughed almost non-stop throughout his section. He was clever and passionate in his lucid explanations of the politics behind his brilliantly-crafted verses. And, best of all about the live experience, he got everyone involved in the performance. "JACK THE RIPPER!" Maybe you had to be there - but if that's true, then I'm even more bloody glad that I was.
Jean Binta Breeze was a Jamaican poet I'd heard of before but had never read / heard / seen (hard to pick a verb for consumption of performance poetry). Where Michael Rosen's poems made me laugh, her poems sent shivers down my spine. I loved her story about being commissioned by the BBC to write a poem about the Old Testament, and bravely writing a poem called Isaiah, after the prophet who told Israel to mend its wicked ways. It takes nerve and integrity for a "Third World Girl", as a poem excoriating arrogant Western tourists was entitled, to take the opportunity offered by one of the old imperial power's greatest bastions of cultural privilege and subvert it to stand up against one of the world's greatest injustices. (Of course, the BBC said her poem was "anti-Semitic", that quick and easy route to instant censorship, and rejected it.) She performed Adrian Mitchell's To Whom It May Concern with reverence, updating it only at the end to expose its continuing relevance. Above all, though, sentimental fool that I am, I loved her Love Song (transcribed above). She set it up beautifully. "This," she said, "is called Love Song. A friend of mine once called it the perfect 21st century love poem." She paused, and the audience settled to listen to a love poem. "IF I HAD A MACHETE!" she shrieked, and we all jumped, then howled with laughter. Wonderful - and the kicker at the end was even better, and the collective "Aaawwww!" was possibly even louder than the earlier laughter.
The final poet was half-English, half-Iraqi rapper Lowkey (emphasis on the "Low"), with whom I obviously felt an immediate phonetic affinity. Any qualms were instantly dismissed with his stellar updating of (again) To Whom It May Concern: "So serenade my ears with love songs, / Provoke my peers with propaganda, / Dissolve my tongue with Coca Cola, / Seduce my brain with celebrity, / Burn my eyes with The Sun, / Muffle my mouth with McDonalds, / tie my feet with Nike's, / Tell me lies about Palestine..." He spat the words with a fiery passion that told you he knew what he was saying and that he truly felt it. He carried on with some more political poems, before dazzling the room with a slice of rap virtuosity entitled Alphabet Assassins where he slickly slid through a series of super-fast raps each dedicated to a different letter of the alphabet (I particularly giggled at the English-Iraqi's wry "I may be a mad mongrel and a manic Mesopotamian maniac").
If only all evenings could be that good.
I would, like all my family, plant us a garden.
If I had a gun,
I would shoot locks off treasures, open vaults.
If I had a bomb,
I would defuse it, neutralise the very thought.
If I had power,
I'd rule it, free the passage from the start.
But if I had you,
I would be overwhelmed.
[Love Song, Jean Binta Breeze]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scene is Friday night at Marxism 2009. It's been a good day, by and large. I've met up over lunch with old friends from my more active socialist days back in Tooting, and met new people. I've been to one disappointing talk (the speaker was clearly well-read and intelligent, but a poor public speaker) and one stellar talk (given by the always excellent Chris Bambery). I'm now (having arrived a bit late) in the evening performance poetry session, with someone I got chatting to after the latter talk. The session is in memory of the radical poet Adrian Mitchell, most famous for his poem To Whom It May Concern - I encourage you to click the link.
I was mostly there to see Michael Rosen. I always appreciate his writing in The Guardian, I've enjoyed his performances on TV, and I love, love, love his poetry anthology Fighters for Life. I wanted to see him in person, to experience the full "performance". I wasn't disappointed. He was funny, both in his banter between poems and in the poems themselves, and the audience belly laughed almost non-stop throughout his section. He was clever and passionate in his lucid explanations of the politics behind his brilliantly-crafted verses. And, best of all about the live experience, he got everyone involved in the performance. "JACK THE RIPPER!" Maybe you had to be there - but if that's true, then I'm even more bloody glad that I was.
Jean Binta Breeze was a Jamaican poet I'd heard of before but had never read / heard / seen (hard to pick a verb for consumption of performance poetry). Where Michael Rosen's poems made me laugh, her poems sent shivers down my spine. I loved her story about being commissioned by the BBC to write a poem about the Old Testament, and bravely writing a poem called Isaiah, after the prophet who told Israel to mend its wicked ways. It takes nerve and integrity for a "Third World Girl", as a poem excoriating arrogant Western tourists was entitled, to take the opportunity offered by one of the old imperial power's greatest bastions of cultural privilege and subvert it to stand up against one of the world's greatest injustices. (Of course, the BBC said her poem was "anti-Semitic", that quick and easy route to instant censorship, and rejected it.) She performed Adrian Mitchell's To Whom It May Concern with reverence, updating it only at the end to expose its continuing relevance. Above all, though, sentimental fool that I am, I loved her Love Song (transcribed above). She set it up beautifully. "This," she said, "is called Love Song. A friend of mine once called it the perfect 21st century love poem." She paused, and the audience settled to listen to a love poem. "IF I HAD A MACHETE!" she shrieked, and we all jumped, then howled with laughter. Wonderful - and the kicker at the end was even better, and the collective "Aaawwww!" was possibly even louder than the earlier laughter.
The final poet was half-English, half-Iraqi rapper Lowkey (emphasis on the "Low"), with whom I obviously felt an immediate phonetic affinity. Any qualms were instantly dismissed with his stellar updating of (again) To Whom It May Concern: "So serenade my ears with love songs, / Provoke my peers with propaganda, / Dissolve my tongue with Coca Cola, / Seduce my brain with celebrity, / Burn my eyes with The Sun, / Muffle my mouth with McDonalds, / tie my feet with Nike's, / Tell me lies about Palestine..." He spat the words with a fiery passion that told you he knew what he was saying and that he truly felt it. He carried on with some more political poems, before dazzling the room with a slice of rap virtuosity entitled Alphabet Assassins where he slickly slid through a series of super-fast raps each dedicated to a different letter of the alphabet (I particularly giggled at the English-Iraqi's wry "I may be a mad mongrel and a manic Mesopotamian maniac").
If only all evenings could be that good.