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Roy Harper and the politics of poetry

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Are poets supposed to do something, to make a difference? Watching Singer/Songwriters on the BBC just now made me look at Roy Harper’s website. I first inhaled his work with the smoke from my housemate’s joss sticks when at teacher-training college in 1972, and was struck by one verse of Harper’s  more than any other: “Oh, I hate the white man/and his evergreen excuse/Oh I hate the white man/ and the man who turned him loose.”

Wow, eh? If I could write like that… well, I’d be Roy Harper. And I’m not. Clearly.

Anyhow, I have just read this on Royo’s website:

“The poet Shelley famously wrote that 'the poet is the unacknowledged legislator of the world'. This was not intended by him as an airy-fairy bedsit aspiration that a moral force was somehow generated through the mere act of writing: but that there was an essential link between poetry, political philosophy, and the active confrontation of illegitimate authority.”

They reckon that there is a vacuum at the centre of politics (not one that could clean it up unfortunately) and yet I am not convinced that there is any good political poetry about it, perhaps because it is difficult to write good political poetry – to make serious, topical points and still be poetic?

Now Thursday night’s Commonword slam final was pretty darned good, but there were a couple of rants which were clearly written to appeal to the listeners’ political prejudices. All well-intentioned stuff, but demonstrating that, for me, the content is not the poem; the poem is the poem. It’s not what you say, it’s… 

I think I shall suggest this in the discussions pages, see what you gels/guys think about Harper’s/Shelley’s thoughts.

I met up with Anwen Lewis at the slam – sexiest cellist/poet on the Manchester circuit, though doing less since having her second child – and reminded her that she had been one of our committee members in the early days of Write Out Loud.

I had a pint with Tony Walsh afterwards, Glastonbury poet-in-residence, and another ex-Write Out Loud committee member. He is involved in so much now: teaching poetry in schools and prisons, receiving commissions all over the place, from Poland to Preston, yet he still remembers his roots – not always a good thing for us sub-working class types, our bloody roots still wrapped wound our legs.

Tony reckons that we have made a big difference to lots of peoples’ lives, Write Out loud and all the other organisations involved in open-mic or performance poetry.

Is poetry our way out? Our unacknowledged legislator? I’d love to hear what you think in our discussion.

Photograph: Greg Freeman

 

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Comments

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Dave Morgan

Tue 22nd Nov 2011 20:08

I agree with Harry's opening point on 23 Oct.Politics not just about bankers and money.
Unfairness,exploitation,inequality and discrimination are rife.
And we all run with and contribute to them.
It's a dirty business, living.
Poetry should attempt to tell some version of truth and we should own up to our own shortcomings (oops 2 owns in a line, shocking).
Apologies for the royal "we" Julian. I meant "I" of course.

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M.C. Newberry

Mon 21st Nov 2011 14:45

A poignant irony worth thinking about:At the time of the 1920's "Troubles" when theAnglo-Irish War was in progress, Irish leaderArthur Griffith observed that a country that gave up control of its currency deserved to lose its freedom. Consider Ireland's TWOEuro referendums...the second basically imposed upon it from the European Union via its own supine politicians...and remember the words of Arthur Griffith. Is it any wonder that Gerry Adams holds the view that they didn'tspend 500 years struggling to be free of the British only to be ruled from Brussels and Frankfurt. And let's be blunt, those who hold the purse strings, hold power. Monarchs down through history have known that basic truth. The U.K. stood firm with its pound and I bet the Irish wish they had done likewise. Isn't history supposed to teach us something?

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Harry O'Neill

Sat 19th Nov 2011 16:27


Just to get things going again,
What if the pressure and the `involvedness` of the present sovereign debt problems force us to join closer `willy nilly` to a more fiscal Europe?

What then?...would it be money conquering democracy?

Hairy, aint it!

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Julian (Admin)

Fri 4th Nov 2011 17:56

Dear Mr Stockbroker. superb stuff, bang on the money (sorry). Exactly right. Dont know if you saw Ed Balls on Question Time twisting and squirming trying to run with the capitalist fox and hunt with the tented hounds? Pathetic really. well done Benjamin Zephaniah for pointing out clearly that people are fed up with exactly what Mr Stockbroker's song says.
Superb.

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M.C. Newberry

Wed 2nd Nov 2011 21:27

I have used verse in some letters to my local
MP when it seemed appropriate. There are times
when a few pithy lines can be far better than
anger indulged in at length!

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attila the stockbroker

Mon 31st Oct 2011 12:18

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_9816473

Well, I am a political poet, and proud of it! Politics is people's lives - now more than ever before.......

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Yvonne Bolton

Mon 31st Oct 2011 11:14

This poem was penned and read aloud at the open-mic session in Nelson last Friday 28 Oct:

St Paul’s Letter to the Anti-Capitalists
(for Giles Fraser)
by Richard MacSween

Charity suffereth long and is kind
But this has gone on long enough
Charity is not easily provoked
But there are health and safety issues
Charity never faileth
But this is a major tourist attraction
When I was a child, I spoke as a child
And let’s face it: you’re mostly kids
But when I became a man, I saw it was more complicated
Put away those canvas things
Now we see through a glass darkly
The lights are out and we’re losing money
Now abideth faith, hope and charity
But greater than these is turnover
Charity suffereth long
And if you don’t leave, so will you

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Freda Davis

Sat 29th Oct 2011 18:18

I put my comment on the discussion thread so it feels like I was talking in a different room.

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Ray Miller

Wed 26th Oct 2011 23:57

I've listened to Roy Harper for as long as you, Julian. It's the songs that mean summat to you personally that stick, not crap about hating the white man. I'd much rather listen to When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease and I'm no great fan of cricket. Or the love songs. Quite simply, they are better.
When I saw him at Birmingham Town Hall in the early 70's he claimed he was dying of some sheep-related disease. He's not even Welsh, the lying bastard!

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Ann Foxglove

Tue 25th Oct 2011 18:07

Just realised I HAVE written a political poem - sort of! I wrote it for "homework" for the writers group I'm in - we had to imagine we were the parent of a famous or infamous person - which I sort of did. Maybe I'll post it - might be a bit of a change from my recent stuff! ;)

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Harry O'Neill

Tue 25th Oct 2011 15:44

Hi folks
Glad more have taken this up.

Political poetry is often satirical. I think sometimes we need a bit of self-satire.

Just to take three subjects:
We are all busy blaming the bankers for our present ills, but very conveniently forgetting the benefits of the huge increase in credit cards, etc; which we all so recently enjoyed. (They still should have known what they were doing)

Britain, and all the West, have been consuming like billy ho for the last two decades. Consumables have to be produced, production needs workers, if we can`t provide the workers ourselves, should certain newspapers moan so much about immigration?

Also the lifelong social security dependancy problem:
This started in the eighties, when financial globaliation and interst rate changes were forced upon us.(in the one road where I worked four factories closed)
The decision to ease admitance to social security payments was made in order to keep the unemployment -rate down for political purposes. (but was financially beneficial to the unemployed)...How, therefore should we view the people who took advantage of it?

I realise that these are personal views (I speak as a life-long union official)but they all leave a bit of room, perhaps, for some self-satire.

Anyway, maybe this might arouse a bit of opposition. (things were going very quiet)










steve mellor

Tue 25th Oct 2011 13:21

Hi Julian
Are you going to put this up for Discussion, or leave it on this thread.
I've never been sure what (if any) the exact perameters of political comment are.
Harry mentions long rants, but surely a short sharp jab to the conscience is just as effective, if not more so.
I have written a few poems that I might believe are political, the majority admittedly aimed at the financial world that we live in now, but others may not see them in the same light.
Thoughts?

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Julian (Admin)

Mon 24th Oct 2011 12:02

In some ways, Ann, your point IS political, in that if poetry is about feelings and emotions, it is about how WE feel - what makes us feel good, sad, scared, fulfilled, elated, so forth; which is about how we (all?) want to live. I don't want loadsa money (luckily), I want to be happy as much as I can, I want the sense of fulfilment one gets from sharing with and caring for others, it is about those things we share as human beings that politics should be about. Politicians seem to spend their time worrying about how to keep the rich happy, yet they are never going to be happy because what they want is not money - it's MORE, which, as an aspiration, is unsustainable and ends up costing the earth and taking from, or exploiting, the non-rich. What need are economics as if people matttered, to quote Schumacher in his book, Small is Beautiful.

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Ann Foxglove

Mon 24th Oct 2011 10:57

This is really interesting. I could/would never be a political poet. I honestly don't know enough about politics and I guess my poems are all about feelings and emotions. It's that combination that precludes me from political comment in my poetry. (Basic ignorance!)

Re Shelley's comment - what if the poets in question had views that were kinda awful? Or awful in our terms? I wonder would the resultant poems be as dead and un-involving as fascist art and statues of dictators?

Art and passion and political comment can work - Picasso's Guernica for example.

As to the (I am sure true) comment about WOL and open mic and performance poetry changing lives. I know that they change lives on one level but could they change political life? They should be able to. And it's all self-expression. And communication. So a good thing.

And I'm not sure how wonderful a compliment you have paid Anwen - just how many cellist/poets ARE there in Manchester Julian? :)

PS I love Roy Harper!

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Julian (Admin)

Mon 24th Oct 2011 00:49

Hi Harry, agreed. How do we want to live, might be the question to which we need an answer rather than politicians assuming all the time, especially ones who have not a clue what it is like to be poor, to not have the confidence or financial givens that the silver spoons bestow.

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Harry O'Neill

Sun 23rd Oct 2011 19:40

Julian, good topic,

Shelly was talking beyond his brief,but you do have a point about political poetry.

It shouldn`t be about rounding up the usual suspects and subjecting them to a Kylie-style rant.

It should be about defending what (for want of a more acceptable term)are spiritual values - points of generally accepted national self-respect...in other words the effect of policies
on people (and not only the financial effect)

This should be more `poetical` to deal with than long rants about `poverty` in these days.



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