By Australian activist and health care worker, Susan Austin: Veteran The sunken couch cradles him. He grips the remote (friend). The baby, the pot plant, her gloss lipstick all study him. Doctors riddle him with diagnoses but it is war that goes on interviewing him each night. He asks alcohol to counsel him but all each... Continue Reading →
When hope hides
... in unreachable corners and it feels like the conservatives run the world (because they do) and life is reduced to a constant struggle to keep your head above the water and not drown...there's poems like this that don't solve it all by any means but do help you step back a bit, and breathe:... Continue Reading →
The poet killed by Shell
Ken Saro-Wiwa was an activist, writer, and member of the Ogoni people, whose homeland in the Niger Delta has been used for crude oil extraction since the 1950s. The land has suffered extreme environmental damagefrom decades of petroleum waste dumping and leaks and spills, and the people have been tortured, abused, and murdered. Saro-Wiwa was... Continue Reading →
Children were sold
Frances Harper (1825-1911), who campaigned against slavery and helped escaped slaves, wrote this poem. She also often read her poetry at public meetings - seeing creativity intricately linked into real life and struggles. The Slave Auction The sale began - young girls were there, Defenceless in their wretchedness, Whose stifled sobs of deep despair Revealed... Continue Reading →
Ben Okri: A New Dream of Politics (in England?)
They say there is only one way for politics. That it looks with hard eyes at the hard world And shapes it with a ruler’s edge, Measuring what is possible against Acclaim, support, and votes. They say there is only one way to dream For the people, to give them not what they need But... Continue Reading →
Poems from Syria
So while the petty EU squabbles over how many thousands of refugees each country will take, millions in Syria have been killed, internally displaced, and forced to flee their homeland and lives - with no small thanks to US spurring on civil war there for its own selfish reasons. Because poems are humanising, below are... Continue Reading →
Until It Isn’t – Poem by Remi Kanazi
death becomes exciting tolls, pictures, videos tweeting carnage instagramming collapse hearts racing to break 24-hour entertainment every glimpse, splinter and particle of pain jammed into torsos and cheekbones loved ones want to sit for a minute and cry quietly no words, no poetry before Internet and dialed-up emotions before black and white ideologies before a... Continue Reading →
Dictators: Pablo Neruda
An odor has remained among the sugarcane: a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating petal that brings nausea. Between the coconut palms the graves are full of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles. The delicate dictator is talking with top hats, gold braid, and collars. The tiny palace gleams like a watch and the rapid... Continue Reading →
What if imagining things made them possible.
What if selfishness were illegal and books could watch us and our dances drew our faces and the rivers remembered and beauty were untouchable and sleep were stolen and kisses were limited and words were earned and laughter turned the air purple and causing poverty were punishable What if imagining things made them possible. by... Continue Reading →
Video: that poem that said what needed to be said in a hard time to say anything
Emmanuel Ortiz - "Moment of Silence" Before I start this poem,I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honour of those who died in the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon last September 11th. I would also like to ask you a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,... Continue Reading →
Bought and Sold
Smart big awards and prize money Is killing off black poetry It’s not censors or dictators that are cutting up our art. The lure of meeting royalty And touching high society Is damping creativity and eating at our heart. The ancestors would turn in graves Those poor black folk that once were slaves would wonder... Continue Reading →
Lost: Poem from Sudan
This poem is taken from a sequence called, ‘Weaving a World'. ‘October' and ‘April' in the poem refer to the uprisings in Sudan, in 1964 and 1985, respectively, against the dictatorships of General Abood and General Numairy. It was originally in Arabic. Out of reach, stripped bare, orphaned, betrayed by the secret fires that October... Continue Reading →
Revolutionary love
Mario Benedetti's poem Te Quiero in English: Your hands are my caress my daily reminders I love you because your hands work for justice if I love you it's because you are my love my accomplice and my everything and in the street arm in arm we are more than just two people your eyes are... Continue Reading →
Brother from the West
A poetic appeal by Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front) for support in its liberation struggle, 1973. Brother from the West (How can we explain that you are our brother?) the world does not end at the threshold of your house nor at the stream which marks the border of your country nor in the sea in... Continue Reading →
Just Another Drunk Black?
Just another drunk black is what u said, When u came n 'helped' him today, Your eyes were filled with a look of disgust, As you came and took him away. Who the hell are you to judge him, I ask, Do you think ur shit really don't stink? Just because he has dark skin,... Continue Reading →
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm... Continue Reading →
If poets must have flags
They ask for graceful poetry to decorate their tyranny poems to make the hideous picturesque entrails look like streamers blood like wine death like sleep They ask for wreaths to strew murdered mens’ graves posies of sweet-scented words to drench away the stench They want anger to be buried in the carved tomb of verse... Continue Reading →
resistance words 