About poetry

One hundred years ago, an arts movement was forming in a mainly-black district of New York City. Later known as the Harlem Renaissance, it was primarily cultural but also inescapably political. Literature, poetry, jazz, theatre, sculpture and more articulated the lives and demands of African-Americans no longer willing to be grateful that they were no longer enslaved.

O black and unknown bards of long ago.
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre?
Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long.
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?

James Weldon Johnson

Langston Hughes

Wrote poems in the rhythm of the blues

He gave folk the shivers

With 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'

I have contributed this short article to Black History Month activities where I work.

Poems of the Harlem Renaissance
- recommended by Janine Booth

In April 2015, the awesome Lunar Poetry Podcast interviewed Janine.

Listen to the podcast here (and listen to Lunar's many other most excellent poetry interviews and discussions)

Here's the transcript:

Host: David Turner – DT; Guest: Janine Booth – JB

Conversation:

- a rewrite of John Betjeman's The Subaltern's Love Song 

Young Duncan H Dunn was the subaltern's son
Born then withdrawn when the courting was won
Conceived in the back of the subaltern's car
His dad had not planned on it going so far

Today, this website joins with websites Steve Bloom Poetry, Old and New Project, Links (Australia), International Viewpoint, Ecosocialist Horizons, Lalit (Mauritius)

In the 1790s, poet William Blake wrote 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell', which included 'Proverbs of Hell'. Here is a modern poem of proverbs ...

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If it ain't broke, it soon will be
If you want to get ahead, get yourself a trilby

A roast duck won't fly into the mouth of a peasant
No man is an island but some are a desert

This stanza is sponsored
by a weekend bonanza
of two-for-one deals
on our easy-cook meals
from the town's happy eater
which has paid for its meter

All of its sponsors
have generously given
a big wodge of dosh
for their brand on its rhythm

A local disk jockey
has sponsored a trochee
(That's a tum-tee-tum beat
with some well-branded feet)

Poetry paints life, cancer takes it
Poetry means it, cancer fakes it

Cancer can not write, create,
Feel or think, illuminate,
Wipe your brow, commiserate

You're fucking rubbish, you are, cancer
Not a writer, player, dancer
Bring nothing useful to the table
Can't tell a joke 'cos you're not able