Sometimes minds come together and make new things in a conversation. Sometimes different people's poems and stories meet, shake hands, and unseen magic lingers among the warmth... Here are some excerpts from the poems of a mate and a luchadora, from her books No God but Ghosts and Monsters and other Silent Creatures ... April in... Continue Reading →
To be alive is a small victory…
There are some little stories worth carrying around with you in a diary or journal or some place so that they can accompany you in life. This is one of those, for me. Eduardo Galeano (my translation), written while he was in exile: I chase the enemy voice that has ordered me to be sad.... Continue Reading →
“White men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality.”
Languages on their own can be tools of power or resistance... Shailja Patel's "Dreaming in Gujarati": (excerpts) I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of... Continue Reading →
The different shapes of death
A child saw death as something to be put up with, and not as something that came in old age, because most of her brothers had been killed. Likewise, some people fear death, some believe in some sort of afterlife, and others don't. For some in this world, death is normalised and funerals are weekly things.... Continue Reading →
Portraits from prison: Using photography to see more
Eva Haule is an activist who spent 20 years in prison, including time in solitary and on hunger strike. She said photography "filled the emptiness". Day after day, seeing the same things, photography gave her the opportunity to see more or to look at things again, differently. In her photos, prisoners are humanized again, and we... Continue Reading →
Out of suffering…
Some Palestinians take grenades and use them as flower pots or for seedlings. Sudanese torture survivors have become councilors for other survivors. How do we recover from suffering? We name it and transform it into its opposite: We fill the craters left by the bombs And once again we sing And once again we sow... Continue Reading →
Christmas was the ‘gift’ brought by the invasion to Latin America
Langston Hughes wrote this poem about Christmas 85 years ago, and it still matters. A U.S. based African-American activist and one of the innovators of Jazz Poetry, he promoted racial awareness, wrote novels, stories, poems and more. Merry Christmas, China From the gun-boats in the river, Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts, And peace on earth... Continue Reading →
Interviewed by war..
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 →
When the makers of your clothes sing
Six former or current Cambodian garment factory workers make up The Messenger Band, and they have much to sing about their working conditions and the state of the country. "Poor countries are kept in the dark," they sing. Through privatisation, the government has stolen everything from the people, and resold it, they sing. They sing... Continue Reading →
The beautiful minds of refugees
Refugees are talked about, judged, imprisoned, abused (to their face, in racist gatherings, in the hoards of naive and nasty social media comments) but rarely heard from. They have the most to tell about their experiences and migration policy. Their opinions and dreamings about life, politics, and humanity are important. Here, thanks to The Refugee... 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 →
On 1 November the animals were blamed..
On this day, the first case of mad cow disease was found in Britain. Eduardo Galeano writes... Danger! Animals! In 1986 mad cow disease struck the British Isles and more than two million cows suspected of harbouring contagious dementia faced capital punishment. In 1997 avian flu from Hong Kong sowed panic and condemned a million... Continue Reading →
You can’t buy the wind
These are my translated lyrics of Calle 13's 'Latin America' - a continent in resistance, in rebellion, re-asserting its beautiful, diverse, colourful, and courageous identity, free of US and European dominance I am. I am what they left behind, I am the leftovers of what they stole, A town hidden on the peak, My skin is... 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 →
Kendrick Lamar rebellious gems
Here are a few gems from US hip hop artist, Kendrick Lamar. Though a bit commercial himself, some of his lyrics have found their way into the Black Lives Matter movement, with protestors chanting "We're gunna be alright!" when attacked by police at the conference in Cleveland. BLM: a bold movement that is influencing and... 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 →
Illustrating injustice
Steve Cutts sums up the world in ink.
resistance words 