Ken, Yuh Draw Bad Card

Some of the larger and decidedly political work that Linton Kwesi Johnson did through his poetry involved reciting his poems at rallies and marches in the UK to protest real atrocities and abuses to real people and to argue for the changing of laws. He marched in tandem with political organizing and speech making. Those marches, those recitations, those expressions of protest through art, actually did change things. Laws were rescinded, consciousness was raised, and things have happened in the UK because of this work. Making a distinction between LKJ the poet versus the musician is misguided and limiting. That his music becomes a vehicle for his poetry is not, to my mind, an indication that poetry has failed while the music has not. For LKJ there cannot be one without the other. For me, the music and the poetry are not only engaged, but they are defining of each other. Yes, music brings people to the table, but every poet knows this even when that poet does not have a dub band backing them up. The music is in the language, too.

What an odd statement to make about the impact of Bob Marley’s politics, and how odd for you to offer your Americanness as an excuse for your ignorance. You are not speaking as an American. You are speaking as a particular type of American whose discourse is inextricably tied his background, exposure, engagement with the world and class position in society. Perhaps you would want to tell the freedom fighters of South Africa that all Marley’s politics lead to is “nothing more than the next bong hit”; perhaps you should tell the soldiers who fought Ian Smith in Rhodesia to make it Zimbabwe who kept Marley’s music with them in the bush that all Marley’s politics lead to is the next bong hit; perhaps you should tell the countless native American tribes who have seen in Marley’s songs that brilliant outline the dynamics of imperialism and social and cultural expression that all Marley’s politics lead to is nothing more than the next bong hit; perhaps you should tell the Ethiopians, Swedes, the Nigerians, the Aboriginal people of Australia, and so many more than Marley’s politics are about weed. You are probably trying to be provocative here, but what has happened is that you have become quite careless.
The idea that somehow the corporate world has somehow co-opted Marley is, at some level true. But it is a pointless observation. One could argue the same for Ghandi, for Marx, for Martin Luther King and for Fidel Castro. But that is if we are limiting our understanding of the words of these artists to the image that has been constructed about them. Marley’s music has not been changed by these corporate forces that you speak of. Our task is to remind ourselves of this as we focus on the words and test them and determine how relevant they continue to be.
It makes sense to me that you would prefer the obliqueness of what you describe as the Cageian approach rather than the Ginsberg approach. The comparison is already flawed, however and the suggestion that what Marley was doing is within the same sphere as what Ginsberg was doing is reductionist and simply wrong.
No, we have not arrived at a place in the world when any act of writing amounts to a political act. Not so easy, my friend. Not at all. You see, there is far too much at stake for that easy suggestion to work, and anyway, the idea of self expression is a wonderfully enshrined American ideal that ultimately amounts to a genius way of maintaining the status quo. Tony Blair and George Bush know this so well, so that two days ago when Blair was making a speech in the White House and the voices of protestors could be heard seeping into the microphones, he managed to offer laughingly, “That is what it is all about. It is about the freedom to protest like that—that is what we are fighting to protect.” When there were protests in Iraq, the Bush administration rejoiced in this, saying that this is exactly why they liberated Iraq, so that people could be free to protest. It is a lovely idea, but it is intended to defuse and dismiss the actual reason for the protest, the terrible things that these people are protesting.
Only at the most cynical level could one argue that all poetry is an act of protest. Those who do not care to see poetry or any other art form challenge the policies of an administration will agree—“just say anything, just shout about nothing, and we will agree that this is protesting. You don’t have to speak about anything at all.”
Many of us have learnt that it is important to catch the stuff in the periphery and the stuff that is coming head on. It is useless to see the stuff coming from the oblique angles and miss the truck running you over.
And listen, Kenneth, don’t diss Bob Marley again or I will send your blog to all the righteous dreads in the western hemisphere that will proceed to bombard your inbox with niyabinghi curses that will cause your hair to drop out. (smile)