Poetry is not a weapon, but it can be a flag that unites. That was the view of leading Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan, speaking at an English PEN event, Is poetry the strongest form of protest? on Sunday during the Southbank Centre’s four-day Poetry International. Zhadan, who was beaten up by pro-Russia demonstrators earlier this year after he refused to kiss the Russian flag, also argued that a bad poem read from a stage can have more impact than “a very good speech by a politician”. And if poetry is becoming less popular? The answer, according to Zhadan – a view that Jeremy Paxman might or might not agree with – is simply because “It’s not political enough”.

Speaking through an interpreter, he went on to say: “When poets write about themselves, they are only interesting to other poets. Poetry cannot solve political problems, but it can activate people.” In Ukraine, art “took the side of the opposition”. In many cities during the revolution “there were lots of poets on the stage”, he said, adding that “particularly in eastern Europe, people now trust poets more than politicians”. And what of those bad poems that nevertheless moved the masses? “They were not great poems, and probably won’t go down in the history of literature … but without them history would be different.”

Before anyone starts accusing Zhadan of arrogance in his view about the role of poetry, he also pointed out that he had once read in a hall where half of the audience was pro-Ukrainian, and half pro-Russian. “Both halves of the hall thought I was writing for them … that’s why poets would not make good politicians.”

Kurdish poet and columnist Bejan Matur, pictured, was arrested while an 18-year-old law student in Ankara and falsely charged with leading Kurdish separatists. “My poetry starts from that time,” she said. “I was enclosed in a very dark cell – I had to find a way to console my soul. I found words like diamonds, shining in the darkness.” Words that included these lines -  “Even if we drop fire in the sea, it will burn for ever” – from one of her poems.

She said: “To be Kurdish in Turkey, you have to be political. I think this is the difference between east and west, and art and politics. In my country and region, you can’t separate one from the other. I never used political words in my poetry – but at the same time my poetry is really political.” Matur said that a “poetry is in the street” movement had begun in Turkey after the demonstrations in Istanbul: “It is very popular and is growing by the day. We are living poetry more than before.”  

Egyptian hip-hop poet Mohamed El Deeb said that before the 2011 uprising “we had to sugarcoat our lyrics. I would refer to Mubarak as The Big Guy, or Him. We couldn’t refer to him directly. But we were prophesying the revolution – and it happened.” He added that life was being lived at a very fast pace: “You need simple observation from the streets. You don’t have to write in Shakespearean language – street language is how we speak today.” But he added that during the Tahrir Square protests of 2011, poetry from the 1950s and 60s, “from old Egyptian poets”, was being recited, too.

Tamil poet and activist Kutti Revathi said poetry “touches the alarm bell of society”. She added that in India it had moved “from the literary genre to another stage … what are you doing to do with poetry? That has become the question. It hangs before me all the time.” She added that in her country, because of the caste system, “one woman is not equal to another woman. That is where India is different from the rest of the world.” She read her poem ‘Breasts’, which she recited again in the evening in the main Royal Festival Hall.

The four poets were questioned and prompted by Harriet Gilbert, an arts programmes presenter on the BBC’S World Service, and also presenter of Radio 4’s A Good Read. The event was introduced by Catherine Taylor, deputy director of English PEN. Greg Freeman and Frances Spurrier

 

 

FIFTY GREATEST Love Poems was the kind of set-piece occasion the Southbank does very well, the Royal Festival Hall stage filled with a cast of actors and poets from across the world reading poetry chosen by curators Anna Selby and James Runcie, the Southbank’s head of literature and spoken word. It was part of the Poetry International, and one of the Southbank’s Summer of Love events, too.

There were lovely and intriguing moments. The late Adrian Mitchell’s light-hearted love poem ‘Celia, Celia’ was read by the person to whom it was addressed, his second wife Celia Hewitt: “When I am sad and weary /When I think all hope has gone / When I walk along High Holborn / I think of you with nothing on.” And just for fun she read a second short poem as well: “I flop into our bed with Thee, /Ovaltine and warm milk-o/ And there we lie in ecstasy/ Watching Sergeant Bilko.”

The original Ted Hughes poem on the programme, ‘Lovesong,’ had been replaced at the last moment by ‘A Pink Wool Knitted Dress’, describing the day of his wedding to Sylvia Plath, at the request of his widow, Carol, we were told.

Frank O’Hara’s ‘Having A Coke With You’ – “the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary” – was read by Philip Cowell. Jackie Kay’s ‘Her’ was read by Adjoa Andoh:  “I tried to catch her and she laughed / a loud laugh that cracked me in two”.

Margaret Atwood’s ‘Variations on the Word Love’ was included – “This word is not enough, but it will have to do”, as was Israeli poet Anat Zecharya’s ‘A Woman of Valour’, about a gang-rape by 35 soldiers. Ashjan Al Hendi dedicated her poem, ‘In Search of the Other’, to her native Saudi Arabia, “a land of peace and love”.

At the end Harriet Walter read Vikram Seth’s ‘All You Who Sleep Tonight’, “Far from the ones you love … / Know that you aren't alone / The whole world shares your tears, / Some for two nights or one, /And some for all their years.”

Everyone in the packed audience will have had their own favourite. Mine was Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet’s ‘Things I Didn’t Know I loved’. Hikmet, a communist, spent most of his adult life in prison or in exile. He died only a year after writing this poem, which lists the earth, rivers, the sky, trees, roads, flowers, stars, the cosmos, the sun, clouds, rain, and “pitch-black night”. It ends thus: “I didn’t know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty / to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train / watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return.” Greg Freeman