The pen may be mightier than the sword but together they are unstoppable. The youth on the streets claim spoken word as their weapon of choice. In Syria a protest rap by Narhain Al Mousawi is released via Youtube. In Palestine Remi Kanazi reads to the people on co-existance. Poetry was the source of news before CNN, before BBC and before Al-Jazeera - and it still is.
It is Word of Mouth. All over the world and for hundreds of years: From Harlem to the White House, from the townships of Soweto to the government in Pretoria, the poet makes visible the structures set up to fool the common people. Poets create a bridge between the personal and the political, between the spiritual and the physical. Before email and twitter the message through voice and page was no less effective. The printing press had comparable power. It was a weapon of propaganda in the hands of government but a revolutionary tool in the hands of the people.
The African National Congress used the printing press in the dark days of apartheid.Keorapetse Kgositsile used his exile in New York to send out poems. The Last Poets a revolutionary Black American group, who were fighting their own government, were so influenced by this exiled South African that they named themselves after one of his poems: Towards a Walk in the Sun, in which Keorapetse Kgositsile writes, “we are the last poets in the world”.
The pressure on poets is immense. Whereas Keorapetse Kgositsile was watched in New York by the South African secret police in the 1960s, The Last Poets’ every move was recorded by Nixon’s FBI and later by the CIA. The Last Poets inspired many present day rap artists, including Mos Def, Tupac Shakur, Chuck D, K'naan and the recently deceased Gil Scott Heron. Music helped the poems reach further into public consciousness.
The record press as a news source mirrored the printing press. In 1980’s London, Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poemDi Great Insohrekshan, set here to music, put the 1981 Brixton riots into their proper historical context, as a watershed moment for Black British politics in the UK. Poetry is at the heart of revolution because revolution is in the heart of the poet.
Whereas news can be distorted by the state, poetry is seen as the truth. When Gil Scott Heron chanted in 1970 "The revolution will not be televised", he was saying they are not telling you how it is: so here is the news. No wonder corrupt regimes incarcerate poets, exile them, torture and even kill them for the simple act of writing. As Benjamin Zephaniah once said to Nelson Mandela in a private letter, “you can tell how well a country is by how it treats its poets”.
And today technology has proved the prophetic words of Gil Scott Heron. In the last lines of his celebrated poem he says, “The revolution will not be televised brother. The revolution will be live”.
But what happens afterwards when the dust of revolution has settled? Some poets became presidents, such as Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia, or Senators like Pablo Neruda in Chile. Most return to their countries where their work is celebrated. After twenty-nine years in exile, a diminutive grey-bearded poet Keorapetse Kgositsile returned to South Africa – where today he is the poet laureate. In the true sense of the word revolution he has come full circle. He who felt as The Last Poet of the world is first, first amongst equals. Towards his walk in the sun. He is still writing to this day.
Besides the links in this article, here are a small selection of poets you might want to take a look at
Tupac Shakur
Claribel Alegra
Mikey Smith
Garcia Lorca
Roque Dalton
Václav Havel
Gil Scott Heron
Bobby Sands
Bertolt Brecht
Miguel Hernandez
Pablo Neruda
Patti Smith
PEN works to promote literature and human rights. From defending the rights of persecuted writers to promoting literature in translation and sending writers in to refugee centers and prisons, English PEN promotes literature as a means of greater understanding between the world's people.
Lemn Sissay BBC Radio Documentary on The Last poets
Lemn Sissay BBC radio Documentary on Gil Scott Heron |
