Rudolph Lewis Replies to Marvin X’s Poetic Mission



The Poetic Mission



In time of struggle and crisis, the poet must become a propagandist who whips defeat into victory, sadness into joy. Truth is paramount--there are lives at stake, hence this is no game, no job for money, no position for public adoration, no ego trip. Call it revolution, change of the most radical form. Marvin



Maybe the subject should be "poetic missions." At the heart of the problem for poets is to discover what is the Mission, isn't it, if there is such a thing? Missions vary from moment to moment, occasion to ocassion, I would think. Is the audience "the people" or is it the poet's sense of the people? Or is the poet's audience, his choir? Is the poet really a truth sayer? Or does he/she often obfuscate (or exaggerate) the truth, maybe for good reasons, maybe for awful consequences? I suspect that neither poems nor poets have a special Mission. It is a romantic notion that has outlived its times.

Poems can be sledge hammers (hurtful) or they can be subtle (very subtle), like Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, Praise song for the day? Which ones indeed carry more truth? Which ones are more effective in getting us where we want to go? Some poems are not so easily interpreted, as in Kwame Dawes, New Day, which some might be view as a eulogy for the living. Poems are symbolical as well as prosaic. Some poems are intended to shock.

For instance, take Baraka's "The Masquerade Is Over."


The Masquerade is Over



Hitler is alive

& Well

Now he lives

In Israel .

The Master Race

Has changed

Its place

The new Nazism

Is called

Zionism!

The old oppressed Jews

Are dead

Call them Palestinians

Instead!



-Amiri Baraka 12/08



Does this poem express the Truth. If it does, is it a truth that the people can digest? Or does it stimulate untruths or more conflicts or more hatreds? Do you grant too much to the "mission" of the poet? Is poetry the same as propaganda, which some associate with out right lies and distortions? How do we reconcile the two?

As you know many of the poems of the BAM period are relics and say more about the mindset of the period or the poet, for instance, some of the poems of Nikki Giovanni or poems of Sonia Sanchez. The poets themselves might argue that they are not relevant for today. Or they would denounce or apologize for them as the expression of youth, and not really the Truth.

Is poetry not also a personal statement that says more about the person at the time of writing, than it does the Truth?

Take for instance your poem in response to the slaughter in Gaza:


Who Are These Jews?



Who are these Jews

Vandals from Europe

Who know best how to murder, slaughter, bomb and lie

Claiming holy land

Chosen of God they say

Lord let us pray

If they are his chosen

Even Jesus condemned the synagogue of Satan

Abrahamʼs children?

Where is the work of Abraham?

The peace love faith

these are devils

Murderers liars

Usurpers like the Crusaders

from some place

Maybe outer space

Why did Hitler treat them so mean?

look how they act in the holy land of God

Bombing to hell people with nothing

Half a century nothing

No water food medicine

Hospitals mosques schools smashed to smithereens

Who are these Jews?

God’s holy people

Seizing homes of others

Yet claim they come in peace

Where is the peace with your planes

Bombs, warships, tanks, soldiers

no security even with nukes

What will secure you

make you safe in the night

The Wall

American sycophants



The media Zionists tell fairy tales on Fox,

CNN, NPR and Pacifica

Even Amy Goodman is not fair

While you destroy the land of God

can the devil claim God’s land

It may take a hundred years

like the Crusaders

You shall depart one day

Not back to Europe

but some place

Probably space

there you will challenge the sun

Or fight the dead moon

Somewhere is a place for you

Who claim shalom alaikum

Yet never intend to allow Palestinians

land of their own

Return of refugees

So your children pee in bed

Children of Gaza bombed death in beds, schools,

Hospitals

Who are these Jews

Who are not Jews

of the Synagogue of Satan?



You leave Gaza in jail

No exit no democracy

Even after their vote

If Hamas is their choice

Leave them alone

Let them build their state their way not yours

America ’s

Egypt ’s Saudi Arabia ’s Jordan ’s

Their way

Maybe then rockets will be silent

Maybe then you will live in peace

Maybe then the world will not tire of you

hate you

Will accept you with love and brotherhood.



be aware the battles you win

it is not winning the war

There are powers greater than you, your guns, planes,

Nukes, lies, phony claims, fake chosen ness

To hell with your God, your holy books

Myths made in America

In the white house you rule

Made in Jewyork

Your home away from home



Past time for Palestinian State

Don’t you see the world wearing Kafiyas

Not knowing it is the scarf of suffering people

The scarf of blood and tears

Betrayed by leaders who steal and dine in Europe

Leaders who sell out to Satan in the night

While people live in refugee camps half a century

Leaders who must be lead since they are blind

Who are these Jews?



—El Muhajir (Marvin X)



Will such a poem lead us to the Truth, or just more conflict? Can it really convey the truth of Hamas or Jews or Israelis or Palestinians--a 50 year history? Maybe we need a whole slew of poems to get at the truth about just one instance of our existence. And still I feel it ends as a failed mission. Poems (words) have their limitations.



They often fail us, saying what we really want to say, especially those that speak to the larger conflicts of life, like racism, imperialism, capitalism, sexism, war, peace. We often cannot get enough distance to speak what our hearts really want to say. How do the "people" really know when the poem or the poet has really failed to speak to the real needs of the people?



I welcome response from other poets and writers—Rudy



Marvin X Replies to Rudolph Lewis on Poetic Mission



Maybe the subject should be "poetic missions." At the heart of the problem for poet is to discover what is the Mission, isn't it, if there is such a thing? Rudy



Everyone, whether poet, scientist, lover, street sweeper, dope fiend, must ultimately define his/her life’s mission or purpose. This is why brother Ptah suggested and I include the 13th Step in my How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy.

What is the mission of the poet—words can kill or heal. Sonia Sanchez says, “Will your book free us?” Apparently not since the stores are full of black books and we still ain’t free.



The dope fiend must come to understand recovery is only a step—once clean and sober then what? Only to sit in meetings claiming sobriety while still drunk on recovery—so after recovery, then discovery of one’s mission. Remember that Nancy Wilson song, “I Never Been to Me”? So we can be poet, mother, wife, husband, yet never discover our true mission in life, and even when we discover our mission, we may be too fearful to execute it.



Is the audience "the people" or is it the poet's sense of the people? Or is the poet's audience, his choir? Is the poet really a truth sayer? Rudy



The people are real live people who we should encounter in their/our daily round, thus we hear their cries if we listen, for they will tell us all, if we listen. It is not some echo in our head, life is beyond imagination (the poet’s sense of the people). They will tell you their joy and suffering as they have told me while I was “selling Obama T shirts. The “people” told me again and again the ritual they planned for inauguration day, they told me their joy and happiness, no matter what intellectuals think. So it is my job to express their joy in this world of sadness and dread.

It was the same with the murder of Oscar Grant. The people told me of losing their loved ones to homicide, yet received no attention because it was a black on black crime. They said even the police showed no real concern. Thus we must be guilty of selective suffering. If a white man kills us, we protest. When we kill us, nothing happens. The murderer still walks the streets and everybody knows he’s the killer, but we say nothing out of fear, so families suffer grief and trauma alone, in silence. These people are not some abstraction, some imaginary sense of the people, not his choir. The poet is either about truth or he is about lies, the choice is his.



Or does he/she often obfuscate (or exaggerate) the truth, maybe for good reasons, maybe for awful consequences? I suspect that neither poems nor poets have a special Mission. It is a romantic notion that has outlived its times. Rudy



All art is exaggeration. What is music but the exaggeration of natural sounds, birds, bees, water, wind, rain, thunder. The poet often takes poetic license with events, especially for dramatic effect. The poet, the musician, the painter must decide to join the revolution, as they did during the 60s and earlier, throughout time. This is not a romantic notion. How can the conscious poet ignore the suffering of his people when he sees they are ignorant, suffering poverty and disease? The poet must decide to aid them or leave them alone and praise the king, pharaoh or whomever he decides to clown for, shuffle and dance. For thousands of years the poetic mission has been to cry for freedom and justice. We know the source of art for art’s sake—simply art of the master class, the rulers and oppressors who pass by the man on the roadside, robbed and half dead.


Poems can be sledge hammers (hurtful) or they can be subtle (very subtle), like Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, Praise song for the day? Which ones indeed carry more truth? Which ones are more effective in getting us where we want to go?
Rudy


As is well known, my style is the sledge hammer (Kalamu ya Salaam) or to write with venom (Dr. Julia Hare). The youth on the streets of Oakland who have read my books say, “You’re very blunt.” Indeed, it is a style reflecting my lifestyle (you’re too rough to be a pimp, said a prostitute).



And yet I am in awe of the feminine style. It is so gentle, subtle, smooth like a razor cutting to the heart. I am amazed at the feminine approach or style, especially in writing. But Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem was too soft for me, bored me to tears. Alice Walker’s as well. Now the poetic message from Rev. Lowery was great. It moved the soul, my soul, it had the language of the people, not that academic bullshit language of Alexander’s. See my A Day We Never Thought on the inauguration. But all these poems are a matter of style, not truth. Some like it soft, some like it hard. Some like Miller Lite, some like OLE English 800. We can get to the truth many ways, just get there.



Is poetry the same as propaganda, which some associate with out right lies and distortions? How do we reconcile the two? Rudy

All art is propaganda of one class or another, one group or another. Alexander’s poem is bourgeoisie art to me. Would I be allowed to read my poems on such an occasion? The bourgeoisie runs from me on sight, no need to say boo. Although the Oakland Post Newspaper claimed they were going to run A Day We Never Thought. I did not try to be the sledge hammer with this poem. I wanted to express the joy of the ancestors, the living and the yet unborn. Oh, Happy Day. Finally, the poet is not limited to one approach. He is able to don the feminine persona when necessary. It is his duty to know the spirit of male and female, and the non-gender of the spirit world?


As you know many of the poems of the BAM period are relics and say more about the mindset of the period or the poet, for instance, some of the poems of Nikki Giovanni or poems of Sonia Sanchez. The poets themselves might argue that they are not relevant for today. Or they would denounce or apologize for them as the expression of youth, and not really the Truth. Rudy



The mission of the Black Arts Movement was truth. There is still truth in the BAM poems, yes, forty years later. There is truth in Baraka’s Toilet, Dutchman, and the poems of Nikki and Sonia. Yes, these poets might say their poems are not relevant but they are not truthful. The Dutchman is real. “If Bessie Smith had killed some white people, she wouldn’t need to sing the blues. She could have talked very straight and plain about the world—no metaphor, no innuendo….”



And Sonia’s lines are still relevant even if she finds them distasteful, such as “What a white woman got cept her white pussy?”

Are the above words youth or truth? Of course time causes a maturation of thought. All the things I thought at twenty, some of them I no longer think, but there is still much truth in my early writings. Khalid Muhammad used to tell me to hell with my current writings, he loved my early books such as Fly To Allah and Woman, Man’s Best Friend. These are the books that awakened his consciousness, he told me more than once.

Baraka, the man who taught me how to say motherfucker, now objects to use of the term, except in a moment of passion. As for myself, all words are holy and sacred, none are obscene. What is obscene, saying motherfucker or actually fucking your mother, sister, daughter, son? There are those persons here in the Bay who object to my language, yet they have been indicted for incest and child molestation.

Simply because these/us BAM poets have reached old age does not negate the truth of our early writings. Of course the rappers took our language to another level that may indeed transcend truth for pussy and dick nonsense.



Is poetry not also a personal statement that says more about the person at the time of writing, than it does the Truth? Take for instance your poem in response to the slaughter in Gaza. Rudy



My poem Who Are These Jews is basic truth. And if it’s true for me, it’s true for you. But the essence of the poem was said by Jesus 2000 years ago, John 8:44. Was Jesus lying then, am I lying now? At what point do we come out of denial and admit we got some devils up in here? Why should Hamas recognize the existence of Israel, does Israel recognize the existence of Hamas, the democratic victory of Hamas?


How do the "people" really know when the poem or the poet has really failed to speak to the real needs of the people? Rudy



Are the people deaf, dumb and blind? Have you not read a poem or book that changed your life? The people tell me all the time my writings transform their lives. Truth transforms, lies do not, not for the better. Lies lead to destruction, truth to construction of people and society.

--Marvin X