we want poetry back: a poem

the messengers had children
the messengers had children
oh / greying guards at
the gates of lyric / saying
not on my watch
sonnets trained on the horizon
that’s right / the messengers had children

oh / old white men
who shot the messengers
& those (some come even
coloured or with breasts)
who bow to same

oh / you who killed poetry
marched pentameter poised across
the slaying fields of tongue
is a new dawn
the messengers had children
& the street poets have come
is a new dawn
the messengers had children
& those children have guns
is a new dawn
the messengers children have
become the messengers
& we / the messengers
want blood

you who guarded lined scrolls
& metaphored our distant dots with
squinting iambic eyes
but forgot to look (& after all
what kind of poet can’t see behind him?)
& while you slept we scaled
back fences / braved body rot
& still twitching casualties in
a beat battalion tip-toe
across forbearers screaming bones

oh / old white men & those
(some come even come young
coloured or with breasts)
who bow to same
we want poetry back / we
are the children you
left wailing / without a backward glance
oh / but when you cut down word
the roots undergrounded
& grew

& oh /real poets / you did not think to drown
the messengers children
did you?

Note to Visiting Poets

stand: a poem

stand up
is enough
no more sit in
people / get up

jesus christ
malcolm X
& osama
sometime had it right:
if you believe in something
you should be prepared to die

like paul bogle / in a morant bay rebellion
hunt the planters
storm the plantations
coromantee chief
tacky tearing past
mounted militia
men / freedom fight your way
reclaim almighty’s head
in spanish town

stand up
is enough
no more sit in
sister / get up

jesus christ
malcolm X
& osama
sometime had it right:
if you believe in something
you should be prepared to die

stand

behind the door
stake the battlefield / back
against the wall / brother
weapon to the sky

let’s take it all

take it all
let’s take it all / are you
with me / backs against the wall

stand up
is enough
no more sit in
daughters / get up

Speakers Corner

brown woman / oh
on splintered soap-box
in breezy alleyway
your voice / against white wind
hoarse throat / tired eyes
& a body that beats / like
words been brewing
i know / for that
whole dark lifetime
finally come alive
brown woman / oh
& our history just
humming through you

the sober crowd / might
walk away / through / over
around / back-track past
the discomfort you
cause / those
black lips / brown woman
oh / though they / hands over ears
hearts / eyes / mouths / walk on
they heard you / oh
brown woman /oh
heard you / break
through / that snatch
of sound on a
splintered wooden soap-box
in this here wide alley / amen
oh / brown woman /oh
say truth / brown woman
like you want:
all & then some
for me


I performed, on Sunday in the Federation Square Atrium as part of the Speakers Corner event for the Emerging Writers Festival. The idea? About thirty poets, five soapboxes throughout the open-air Atrium, spaced about twenty metres apart, and a tight schedule which saw each poet perform on each of the five soapboxes once throughout the course of the day, between 1pm and 5pm. The result? Poetic chaos, a crazy word soundscape, many hoarse voices and two thousand walk-throughs over four hours. Poetry for the public. Amen. We all should reclaim public space like this. Poetry for the streets.

Besides performing, I also had a chance to see many of my favourite Melbourne poets, including Alice White, Komninos Zervos and Santo Cazzati. The poem above, I wrote about Muma Doesa, a beautiful young brown woman who I’ve never heard on the scene before. I looked across from my soapbox and there she was, doing her thing. I have never, in my time on the poetry circuit, seen another black woman reading. Bring on the African Renaissance.

The pictures of myself and Robbie performing are taken by Sean Whelan, another of my fave Melbourne spoken wordsters.

The First Word

On Friday night, I performed a ten minute poetry & beats set with drummer Robbie Hendry as part of the Opening Night Festivities for the 2009 Emerging Writers Festival. Rambling notes from the night:

1.
Robbie and I were looking around the performance space (pictured) and had just psyched ourselves up ( though I’ve performed there once before unaccompanied , so am vaguely familiar with the space), when Festival Director David Ryding rocked up on the stage and said ‘No, not here guys, you’re up there’...pointing to the heavens. Wha? I thought the man had finally lost it and all the months of festival preparation had burnt out his brain. Turns out though, that there’s a three metre Juliet balcony running right around the back of the stage space, about six metres up from the stage. We played the entire set on the balcony, back-dropped by triangular glass windows and the sparkling Yarra lights bursting from the black.

2.
A representative from the Australian Poetry Centre asked me to get in touch with her regarding giving a reading at the centre during National Poetry Week in September. (Like, Hmmm, let me check my diary...)

3.
After my performance I was approached by the first real ‘reader’ of my novel (outside Overland staff and too-obliging friend-workshoppers): a young woman who was interning at Overland magazine when Black Lazarus dropped on their desk. Interesting inside glance into the Novel Search process.

4.
I had a chance to see comedy duo the List Operators for the first time, and be stirred by comic book writer Shane McCarthy’s Call to Arms.

5.
Robbie and I had a ball rocking the joint from the Gods, messenger-like with drum and word, the way poetry was always meant to be.

Blessed Nerves

So, I've been doing this whole poetry slamming jamming tongue-slapping spoken wordster gig for almost two years solid now, though it feels like forever. Not in a bad way, just in a this-thing-takes-up-so-much-of-my-life-what-the-hell-did-I-do-before-it way (kind of like my son: not quite as grubby, but just as boistrous).

A friend asked me the other day whether I still get nervous, and my instinct was to say 'not really', which is mostly true, but tonight, with the Emerging Writers Festival Opening Night at the BMW Edge Fed Square tomorrow, I'm sitting here thinking maybe I answered too hastily. I do still get nervous. Very nervous. Only not in the way I gather most non-performers do - not on account of having to perform my own work in front of a hundred or so people.

Here's what I've found about me and my nerves over the last twenty months of performing: Slamming on a full stomach makes me feel sick. Performing on the fuck-enormous stage at the BMW Edge Theatre makes me nervous. Performing untested material, in new or borrowed clothes or in a near-empty venue makes me twitchy. Reading poetry in libraries, in'Sports Bars', or on the same bill as poets whose work goes against everything I love about poetry inches me toward the bar. Reading on the same bill as poets I desperately respect or tragically adore makes me jittery. Sitting in green rooms drives me insane. Reading with an 'attached' microphone (as opposed to a chordless mic or with no mic at all) makes me nervous. Performing in a skirt or with lipstick on makes me bizarrely self-conscious. Scoring higher in a poetry slam than someone I believe is clearly better than me makes me dizzy. Thunderous applause leaves me deer-in-headlights speechless. Restrained applause makes me want to go home to bed. Unblinking audience-members freak me out. Distracted audience members make me teary. Gigs that kick off over an hour later than planned make my blood boil.

Okay, so now I've really done a great job of making myself nervous for tomorrow night, so here are all of the things I am looking forward to about performing tomorrow:

Performing with drummer Robbie Hendry for the second time ever, and having a djembe beat to dance to as wall as a tongue-slap. Asking people to dance in their seats, in the aisles, on the stage or wherever they feel like dancing. Birthing two 'virgin pieces' into the world. A big audience. A non-pub venue. Dedicating a piece to Robbie's beautiful and soul-strong wife Kate, who allows us to do what we do by cooking fajitas, giving honest feedback and keeping our very determined collective three little munchkins out of the music room while we jam. Helping open the Emerging Writers Festival, which has been a crucial part of my writing journey (amongst other things, it was at the festival last year that I first linked up with Overland, who has taken on my first book for their Novel Project, and last year the Festival led to an invite to read at the Melbourne Writers Festival). And not finally, but perhaps most amazingly, being allowed to be me, on stage, with a theatre full of people including many whom I love, and being paid for it.

Now, see, those nerves are fast fading. I am truly blessed and may I never take it for granted. Thankyou to everyone who visits me here.
(picture taken September 2008, at the Poetry Idol Final at the Age Melbourne Writers Festival)

Poetry Slam at the White House

The Obamas held a poetry jam at their big White House last week. James Earl Jones was there, and Poetry Slam Champion Mayda de Valle. And yet, despite Obama's frequent emails to me, I didn't receive an invite.

How could he have left me off the list? He even wrote me the evening he was elected, saying:
Dear Maxine, I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history. And I don't want you to forget how we did it. You made history every single day during this campaign ...I'll be in touch soon about what comes next. But I want to be very clear about one thing... All of this happened because of you. Thank you, Barack...

I swear to God that is, word-for-word, what came through to my hotmail from Obama (ie: his publicity team) about ten minutes before he walked on stage.

The only possible explanation for me being left off the guest list is that Michelle saw my serenade to her husband, and got insanely jealous...

Still, as a poet, it's heartening to know the high emphasis the 'leader of the free world' and our 'orator in chief' puts on words. God knows, they got the man to where he is today. May he never forget that.

mistah school teachah ( a poem)

mi teachah seh who ye favourite poet?
mi seh benjamin zephaniah
teachah seh mi nah askin yu
mi raise hand seh benjamin zephaniah
teachah seh cheeky wait ye turn
mi seh benjamin zephaniah
teachah seh benjamin wha?
what he ‘bout when he at home?

benjamin zephaniah / repeat it
benjamin zephaniah / seh again
benjamin zephaniah / write it downg
benjamin / mi seh benjamin
benjamin z
look / mistah school teachah
it nah personal but / listen up
get dem white hand-a babylon
off- dis feisty brown girl education
is enough!

mi blood boil / vein pop outta mi fore
head / scream hot mi mind a-fire
teachah seh sit downg / get off de desk
mi gwan stage it up / kick off a riot
mi back im up against de blackboard
point de chalk right at im throat
udda hand rip up im oxford best
dat keats in pieces all a-throw

benjamin zephaniah / repeat it
benjamin zephaniah / seh again
benjamin zephaniah / write it downg
benjamin / mi seh benjamin
benjamin z
look /mistah school teachah
it nah personal but / lord
get dem babylon white hand
off-a dis angry brown girl education
is enough! mis seh again

den preach mi / linton kwesi johnson
consume mi / robert nesta marley
screech mi / de watts poets
beat mi / de last poets
baraka / def jam / giovanni
call mi / wanda robinson
berate mi / saul & soul nah sham

mi raise hand seh benjamin zephaniah
teachah seh cheeky wait ye turn
mi seh benjamin zephaniah
teachah seh benjamin wha?
what he ‘bout when he at home?

Eulogy

This weekend, a sister-friend asked me to write a Eulogy for her to deliver at the funeral of a baby boy who passed away in utero at nineteen weeks. I am not close to the family of this little angel, and have only met his mother once, but my bestie is close to the family, and watched the little boy being born (his mother had to birth him similar to a normal labour). She briefed me on what she hoped to say and there I sat, staring at the blank screen, numb. I've been deliberating over whether to post it, but after much thought, decided to only post a paragraph of it. I'm not one for sentiment in writing, at least I don't think I am, so it was perhaps my most difficult piece of writing so far. This weekend was supposed to be a 'writing' one, but it sapped me of everything I've got.

I had the privilege of holding you in my arms for a short time, but I will hold you in my heart forever. Know that although you were growing towards us for only nineteen weeks, you were, and are still, loved as unconditionally, as completely and as fiercely in that short time as anyone could hope to be loved in a lifetime.

X(ile): a poem

i will speak / for
the speechless / the silent
the tongue-cut / the breathless / for
the voiceless / the mute
the dumbstruck & ignored / i descend
from the messengers / the griots
the preachers & the toasters
the MCs / the hip-hoppers
the beat-boxers / & the bards / i write
in the margins / on the fringes
in the space between the lines
from the edges / in the outskirts
mother tongue X (ile)

I wrote this refrain yesterday, and am planning to use it either to open at the 'First Word' Opening Night event at the Emerging Writer's Festival in Melbourne next friday, or at the Speakers Corner event on the Sunday.(http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/). I'm thinking three times, increasingly faster, accompanied by a djembe beat.

Audio Links

Links to some of my audio & video poems:

open letter to the president mister obama/ no disrespect to your wife/ but i dig the way your slim hips sway when you do that / live jive walk across the stage/ the way you flash that bad black smile at me across the morning paper page.

plantation rumour an old man cuts cane / under hot jamaican sun / back bent double / body doubled down to the ground.

fairytale the teacher reads snow white / in our fairytale / my daughter will scar her face / with household bleach tonight / crying mirror on the wall / erase this face as black as night.

mama reggae her ample hip sway / vibrates the dance floor / mama jiggles big / down the bootie corridor/ it's four in the morning / & mama reggae wants the floor.

& a full live set, including the poems mali, megan, original human trade and when a brown man says jamaica, can be heard over at wordplay.org.au.

Audio Poems

One of these days I'll get podcasting happening on this blog, but I'm not quite ready for it yet. It's kind of interesting to me, as a spoken word performer, to have a quiet, picturesque place. If you want to catch some audio of me though, you can check out one of my audio posts at http://web.overland.org.au/?p=897, where I'm much mouthier. Comments appreciated - they help me weed out the conkers before the stagelight hits!

Black Lazarus ( a novel extract)

Below is the (current) opening section of my first novel Black Lazarus. The manuscript was selected for the Overland Novel Project and, all going to plan, the finished novel will be published as a special edition of Overland in 2010 (see http://web.overland.org.au/?p=1153) for further details).

The Jamaican harbour of Port Royal was sixteenth century multiculture at it’s fighting best. Swarthy Spanish pirates ate under cover of dark taverns next to Roman Catholic priests before returning outside to deliver leftover scraps to the African slaves who’d been tending to their horses. Located between the shipping route to Spain and Panama, Port Royal was the Sodom of the new world: a place a woman could do well, given the right body and inclination.

The Baptists of Jamaica believed the earthquake of 1692 was a comeuppance for the trading hub. The earth beneath the port opened just as the city was retiring for lunch, swallowing brothels, gambling dens and trading shops filled with spices, silk and doubloons. Quaker meeting houses caved in, churches crumbled and local synagogues sank: the wrath of a furious God against the golden gleam of sin.

The earth cracked in so many places that there was nowhere to run, the ground parting wet and panting like a thousand lusting mouths, suctioning lives and livelihoods into fierce vacuums of quicksand. In truth, the quake was the result of an ever-adjusting earth and short-sighted planning. The city was built flat against the sprawling Palisadoes, foundationed on long sandy beaches and prone to shifting with the tide of the earth’s stretch.

Refugees moved inland from the death-rubble and decay and the smaller village of Kingston swelled to the occasion, gathering up those who thought they’d lost everything. Weeks turned into months, the months turned into years and the years turned into decades. One day people looked up and a city had been built around them, nestled and bustling between the mountains and the sea. Old ones were buried, new ones birthed and eventually all talk ceased about leaving. The place became home with the hum of new life.

Comfort Blood (a mother's day poem)

me mudda she-a strong
guyanese all
& she fight off de worl
on er own

mudda she-a strong
afro proud & tall
she comfort blood
she home

Oh Saul: a poem

why didn’t you call me /saul
why didn’t you call
why haven’t you called me saul
why haven’t you called

oh saul / you were true fit
in skin tight red hips
slammin' black across the stage
boa mohawk / war-paint / brown eyes
& a lyric sheet of rage
oh saul / you took my breath away

the dive was jitter-bugged
with bogan jail bait
screaming hey / black stacey
they call me black stacey
oh lord / I didn’t trip
your eyes were glued to me

why haven’t you called yet
saul / why didn’t you call
it’s been five months / two weeks
six days / nine hours
& a heart beat / oh saul
why haven’t you called

that dope stage leap took
two ribs / balls / vodka breath
& an ankle burn
from security / the words passed to
your hands two years / the
whispering was me / hey rock poet
what / you got too full of famous
to just dial & see
why didn’t you call me /saul
why didn’t you call

that sweat wet chest / white t
ripped to navel / rock rap
wounded screams / a synth
& sneakerfuls of cool / damn
poet saul / you played me
like a fool

it’s been five months / two weeks
six days / nine hours
& a heart beat / oh saul
why haven’t you called me
saul / why didn’t you call

you were true fit
in skin tight red hips
slamming black across the stage
boa mohawk / war-paint / brown eyes
& a lyric sheet of rage
oh saul / you took my breath away*

*This poem is supposed to be tongue in cheek - in case you don't know me so well yet. For the basis of the poem, check out my previous 2008 post 'Saul Stalking', about my encounter with poet Saul Williams. A live, percussion-accompanied version of the poem will be performed on Friday May 22 at 7.30 at the Edge Theatre, Federation Square, Melbourne as part of the Opening Night for the 2009 Emerging Writers Festival http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/SpecialEvents.html.

Unmiracle: a poem

his kind of gospel might not be sopho-aristophilosophy
this man might not be dream in baritone like king
or dangerous like us black folk
all kind of thought malcolm was but never said / he
might not bring healthcare / world peace
race peace / education / unpoverty / a revolution
to his country / this country / the world / anyone
anywhere in fact he surely won’t / he
might not even be a good father / husband
lover / leader / person who knows or hell even cares
if he’s all that genuine / us browns know the man
ain't no solution but / he / lets us eye our knock-kneed sons / like
hey / maybe one day
my boy could be the one

so every early morning late night newscast / every
can I get I witness same old black shit day
I drag my baby to the screen & make him watch the man
& say his name / the boy says
obama
banana obama
obama in pajamas
& he cackles in his crazy two-year old way
a no worries in the world mud pie
brown boy who just might be president
one day

the checkered crowd swells & heaves
like a living—
it is a living thing this
right to breathe like
damn
maybe my breath counts
that closing in of a noose under alabama tree/ that
back-bent-cotton-picking wheeze / that
diving deeper for master’s pearls until one day
your body just won’t surface / those
cold grey lungs salt-logged like
a genesis curse

will you blame us that
when he called we heard / will you
blame us that when he called we heard / will
you blame us that when he called we
packed up the house / the life / the kids / the conscience
we / grabbed the cardboard / the car / the coin jar
& came running with all we had
we knew the man was mostly no
solution might not bring healthcare / world peace
race peace / education / unpoverty / a revolution
will you blame us / we didn't know or hell even care
was he all that genuine
that man / let us eye our knock-kneed sons / like
hey / maybe one day
my boy could be the one

First performed at the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival Slam (www.hraff.org.au/melbourne-poetry.html), Melbourne Australia, 2008. First published at overland.org.au, 2008.

Blog Slam

The poetry slamming ‘movement’ in Australia is still just a drooling, tottering toddler. The year before last, I outlined it’s infancy in articles written for national publications The Age (www.theage.com.au/news/arts/the-road-less-travelled/2007/11/22/1195321950055.html%20 ), and The Big Issue.

Whilst jitter-bugging the blogosphere in search of kindred spirits, I came across Naturally Alise’s blog, Black Woman Lost, which hosts a blog-slam every Tuesday. It's a fantastic opportunity to slam internationally without leaving your digs – and to generate new shit*. Some of the responses to her weekly slam topics are mind-blowing. Here’s my response to an April topic of ‘Fear’:

slick wet sweat
& a pulse in the vein
& the skittering skip
of a heartbeat

rush of the blood
& a white wide eye
cushioned in a coal black skin

(with a nod, of course, to Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dread, Beat & Blood)
You can check out other responses here

So you know where you'll catch me Tuesdays from now on.

* Don’t really mean shit of course, I mean happening lyrical rantings...

Russian Arms (a poem)

if you could only see
these cruise-liner ships
like gods / mama
these loud pink people live

black pirate / on the coast of hunger
beware / the sheriff of nottingham

black pirate / on the tropic of cancer
beware / hungry king john

black pirates
scaling the karkaar ranges
abseiling down
to iskushuban

black pirates
scatter antelope
the dusty scales
of somaliland

black pirates
blood-let the gulf of aden
machete throats
at al hudaydah
blood kin
circle in like shark / & run
seek camouflage in ogaden

oh lord / if you could only see
these cruise-liner ships
like gods / papa
these wealthy white people live

somali boy
angry with hunger
hungry with poverty
& poor with hate

eldest son
of djibouti
whose mother weeps
small village shame

black pirate
black power
in sea-salt rags

& russian arms

black pirate / on the coast of hunger

beware / the sheriff of nottingham

black pirate / on the tropic of cancer
beware / hungry king john

Rollcall (poem)

to rosa parkes alice walker sojourner truth & j california cooper / to erykah badu & don’t shoot me but maybe even condoleeza / to oprah though she’s crazy rich & salt n peppa before their skirts got hitched / to etta james zadie smith & josephine baker / to nina simone tina turner & jamaica /to grace jones my grandma & toni cade bambara.

to toni cade /to toni cade bambara
to angelique jean binta breeze & miriam makeba / to all the sisters I am bound to forget or leave out / to my queen odetta / to my queen odetta / to my queen odetta / thankyou.

to toni cade / to toni cade bambara thankyou / to armatrading india arie & skin from skunk anancy / to octavia zora neale & maybe even some day to me

thankyou / to nikki giovanni / lord / to nikki giovanni / to nikki giovanni roberta flack & stacey ann chin / in fact not just stacey ann / to all the black she poets in the nu yorican slamming down their thing

thankyou / to danticat achibe wangari levy & ntozake shange

my sister my mother & the daughter I may well have some day

Unreal Poet

he says real poets don’t wrestle for silence in beer packed bars echo words from temple walls & scream down the pews of churches he says real poets don’t force you to listen howl it out on a street corner mic slam around the tennis above the orders before the band he says get the fuck out of here who do you think you are now piss off before I—real poets aren’t in your face aren’t big aren’t black aren’t women aren’t young & sure don’t love like that real poets are Phds bushmen or working class heroes would a real poet rock that boat march this street wield a gun mother-fuck hecklers like that he says nah uh I don’t think so you ain’t a poet wrong way sister go back shut the hell up get off turn the thing down go home & wait near the letterbox slot real poets go all angst over that editorial knock back hang out in libraries sleep in squats & starve for their art real poets don’t have white collar jobs stay up writing all night cut their wrists twice yearly and eventually they get it right he says poet my arse don’t try to fool me real poets don’t believe in anything except poetry & certainly don’t stand on the corner of gertrude & smith giving their work away for free.

The Coloured Girl in the Green Room

This is me in the Cadbury Schweppes (very) green room at the Arts Centre, Melbourne on April 8 before a recent collaborative gig with blues guitarist John Norton as pre-show for a group of subsaharan guitar-poets called Tinariwen.

As a child, actors dressing rooms always fascinated me. Visiting sets with my actress mother, these cramped prop and make-up cluttered spaces seemed like magical places full of laughter, drama and possibility: a chaotic mixture of pre-stage-entrance tension and an almost bubble-burst kind of relief as actors flitted to and from the wings during performances. Now, as a (poet) performer myself, green rooms have started to fill the nostalgic void left by my divorce from the dressing rooms of the theatre world.

The green rooms I’ve so far encountered are primarily multi-performer spaces, which I’ve shared with musicians, actors, comedians, other poets and the like. In a sense, these backstage spaces are far wilder than dressing rooms: in a theatre production, no matter the individual politics and tensions behind the scenes, there is that sense of kinship and collaboration which comes from working together toward a common creative goal. In ‘variety’ green rooms, I find generally that, whilst there is mostly an atmosphere of mutual respect, the green room shenanigans become wilder as the evening progresses. As each performance finishes, the room is occupied by more and more post-show performers in wind-down mode, which makes for interesting dynamics indeed.
In a further exploration of my fascination for the spaces performers congregate, I’m working on a play which takes place in a dressing room of a famous play (Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide…).

Interesting idea, but it’s proving extremely difficult – due in no small part to the fact that the stage entrances and exits in For Coloured Girls dictate who is permitted to be in each ‘dressing room’ scene. Essentially, it’s a kind of parallel play, which I’m having to write page by page alongside the actual play. Quite frankly, it’s doing my bloody head in.

Anyway, I’m hoping that during the process (it’s very early days), I get to do a little more green room (or backstage space) research. So let me know if you're a Melbourne performer and would be happy to let me into your green room. And no, that's not a come-on.

cross-posted at overland.org.au