Tell me, nuh?

Tell me something I don't know

Then something that I do

But don't give me your porky pies

Tell me something true

Back to Slamming

So I'm back to school and back to slamming again. After becoming the Farrago London Slam! Champion a couple of weeks ago (woo hoo!), I'll be at the UK Slam! tonight at the Drill Hall (click here for details).

Next Wed, 2nd December, I'll be at Express Excess in Chalk Farm (yep, not far from me, all ye Norf London massiv).

Then I'll be on the long build-up to Christmas, avoiding as many staff/family-dos as possible. Staff dos are most certainly staff dont's for me. I may be turning into a bit of a grump, but why-oh-why do I want to watch my colleagues get drunk while talking shop over a mediocre meal which I have to pay an equal share for (even though I didn't drink even half as much as everyone else), all in the name of Christmas? Look, I won't go on, maybe I'll write a poem about it, or something...

Logging off

KJ

BHM09

I've been keeping quiet... have you noticed? I started this comment in mid-October and only now, in November, have I posted... Why?

Well, after writing about a million half-poems for Black History Month in October, and deciding none of them put across what I wanted to say succintly enough, things just got a bit busy. And I'm still only 3 chapters into the novel, although I'm already worried about the dreaded s: structure.

Funny how, in October, apart from the odd Radio 4 programme, there wasn't much publicity about Black History Month. But there seemed to be a lot of stories about racism. The BNP got far more exposure than necessary with at least two prime-time programmes that I saw, and Bruce Forsyth decided to make a fool of himself defending a crass comment made by one of his Strictly Come Dancing trainers (I would normally never link to a Daily Mail article, but their slant on this is soo bad - including pictures of his Puerto Rican wife, which, of course, proves he doesn't have a racist/ignorant bone in his body). I varied between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch someone last month. So I kept quiet.

Anyway, I'm back to working in schools again, even as I await my 3rd Criminal Records check this year (I'm working in another borough, so I apparently need a new one before I can be trusted as a "non-con"). So I thought I'd share a section of a poem I started about Black History Month in schools. Maybe one day I'll finish it...

It's that time again

Teachers cut-and-paste words from Martin Luther King and staple-gun them to walls
They line up children to sing Kum-ba-yah to politely-clasped hands
Waiting for the assembly to end

Die-hards dust off their dashikis in solidarity with their African roots
If they could only grow dreadlocks around that bald patch
How they would bind us together!

Pinch, Punch....

October... all over. October... all over. Oh yeah, I remember the rhyme now:



June, too soon
July, stand by
August, it must
September, remember
October, all over

We learnt it to predict hurricanes half a hemisphere away, while the dog-eared sign on the wall flapped in the wind: "It's not the longitude, nor the latitude, but the attitude".


We were not allowed to close the window or put our coats on. Or even breathe. But I still managed to sleep between cloud formations.

The rest of my memory is foggy.

Is it that time already?

Pardon me for being so quick.

Notes from a pessimistic optimist

Peace Debate

I was invited to attend the London Week of Peace debate yesterday evening (Mon 21st September), entitled – depending on which publicity I picked up – “Can there be peace without conflict?” or “Can there be peace without violence?”.

It was headed by various representatives of the London community – among them, ex-army commanders, police officers, relatives of murder victims and youth workers. In many ways, then, it fulfilled the usual expectations: there were calls for “the youth” to be listened to; there were calls for “more boundaries” to be set; pleas to stop looking for simplistic solutions, while one person insisted with a straight face that sending more boys to fight in the army would perhaps curb youth violence. (You guessed right, that was the Major General).

Funnily enough, and unsurprisingly so, the others mostly stuck to their territories. The youth journalist and commentator argued that more listening should take place; the parent whose daughter experienced racist bullying called for racism to be “taught” in schools. And so on, with the policeman on the panel asking for members of the community to take some responsibility too; he did, however, stop short of a Crimewatch appeal directed at the camera.

Unfortunately, no one stopped the conversation from taking the slippery slope towards asking “our young people in the audience” to show forth their opinion and shed some enlightenment on the ways of their reprobate friends. There it took on a dark turn, with one well-groomed teenager from Leyton, E10 (we’re in a postcode war, folks) throatily declaring that these tearaway youths need to take responsibility for their actions. Not before namedropping a few hip-hop and grime artists with corrupting influence.

In fact, all the young people present were formally dressed, side-parted and not a sagging waistline to be seen. Presumably, the gun-toting young people we were all talking about were shackled to their postcodes
and thus unable to attend. Which is a real pity, seeing as Kwame Kwei-Armah, leading the debate, repeated twice that it was getting a bit too polite. A foul-mouthed tirade by a gang-banging hoodie would have been a refreshing twist.

Purging the Pessimistic Urge

Debates like this are necessarily tedious. They lack any depth or any real insight. There is no “action plan” beyond reaching out for the canapés outside and making sure to leave a crumb-free hand to shake with your colleagues. Where they can have any positive benefit is in an emotive sense. An audience member may feel inspired to make changes, or may undergo a cathartic process under the weight of what has been discussed. A panellist may feel inspired to promote their latest book, or undergo a cathartic process which will trigger them to write their latest book.

I’m not saying this debate shouldn’t happen – it should; I’m not saying it’s useless – it shouldn’t have to be. So what am I saying? Well, I think what I’m trying to get across is that it needs to be truthful and fair if it is to be of any value. And, if neither, then it should at least be optimistic.

Like any story or film, a debate such as this, where nothing gets resolved, should at least take us somewhere. There ought to be a cathartic process leading from absolute terror and fear to absolute hope for the future. Can you imagine leaving a cinema still not knowing what the film is about, or what has taken place? The only saving grace in these circumstances is when the director has been sufficiently clever to pull on my emotional heartstrings. I was hoping that, after the debate, some sparkly-toothed “youf” would feel sufficiently stirred to take up politics or start a group or do something after the debate, but if I were five years or so younger, I would have been motivated to do nothing, except possibly commit suicide.

The reason for my own disappointment has little to do with the debate itself. It was organised by a well-meaning foundation committed to promoting peace and harmony in the Capital. The debate was designed to be uplifting or challenging, or both. Of that I am sure. But, for me, the real issue is the disgusting and overwhelming sense of pessimism that seems to be eroding the very fabric of our society.


Last weekend, I had an argument with an American friend of mine. She was adamant that there was no other country she would rather live on Earth than England. No other place she felt safer as a woman, or protected, in terms of her rights and security. Sadly, she went a step too far and I lost her when she was trying to pan my earlier argument, which was that we need to rethink our monarchic system.

Whilst having the sense that she was exaggerating somewhat under the influence of alcohol, and the need to prove a point, she wasn’t too wrong. In few other places can I wake up at 7am on a Saturday morning and walk through the park to find comatose partygoers collapsed on benches, handbags intact. In fact, when I haven’t been asleep myself, I’ve seen several people nod off on public transport and not get hassled or mugged. Even more telling is the fact they feel comfortable to do so, and aren’t under a constant state of fear.

When I was growing up, I attended multicultural schools and still count Muslims, Hindus, and Christians of varying denominations – and ethnicities – among my friends. I’ve taught in multicultural schools and seen evidence to suggest that children are still forming friendships that cross cultural and religious boundaries, despite the fact their parents have come from places where these boundaries have forced them to take refuge here. I’ve seen gay couples walk hand-in-hand in places where I would have thought they would be beaten to within an inch of their life. I’ve had people run after me when I once accidently let a twenty pound note drop from my back pocket. These anecdotal stories, which have taken me seconds to recall, remind me that London is still a place in which humanity, tolerance and relative safety can be found.

So, based on these observations, what is it that makes me the ONLY person in a room of over 100 people raise my hand to say I believe London is relatively peaceful? Is everyone else living in fear, or did they simply not understand the question? How are people defining peace? And, if not in London or the UK, where can we say there is an example of peace in the world?

Before answering these questions, I would like to qualify my judgments by adding I don’t think we live in a perfect system. Yards from where I live, there is evidence of serious drug abuse, crime and neglect. I know people – although, thankfully, not many – who have been mugged and raped. I have acquaintances that have lost a relative to knife crime and others who have been associated with gun crime in the past. But in a city with a population calculated at between 7 and 12 million inhabitants, such occurrences are bound to happen. Any peace we can claim, therefore, must be mitigated by the fact violence and conflict, crimes or anomalies – whatever words you use as an antonym – are certain to happen at some point. It is only when these ‘anomalies’ can be said to be out of control, or when they cease to be anomalies and are taken as the norm, or the expected, we can say that this is not a peaceful city in which to live.


Stepping Away from the Peace Index

Working with young people, I can’t help but despair at the pessimism I hear around me when, in reality, prospects for children and young people are high, as well as expectations. More people than ever are attending universities. Exam results are higher. The standard of life here can be said to be much greater than times past, when it comes to healthcare and welfare. And with all of these facts come an immense pressure, which is undeniable. Still, however, the voices that inform our young people are adding to that pressure.

Year after year, the quality of exams are questioned. More than ever, there are added burdens to student debt (I can’t even imagine the day when I finish off paying my student loans). And, worse still, we are constantly being told that it isn’t safe to walk the streets. Day after day, stories of postcode killings sell to newspapers, and we offer these back up to our youth as evidence that they have created an unsafe world.

The truth is, there are places in our capital where postcode violence exists, and where children roam the streets in territorial packs, looking for strays to hunt down. There are people who present such anecdotes – see! See! We are in a feral society. We’re in a societal meltdown... The ship is sinking – but, the naked truth of the matter is a disproportionately high number of people are living in the fear of crime, compared to the number of actual criminals, and the incidence of actual crime.

So I agree, there are areas that need regeneration; there are children that need rehabilitation; and those who have somehow slipped through the net need to be reined in. But if the oil needs changing in your car, do you curse the car and go out and buy another one? Or do you just change the oil?

Extending the metaphor somewhat, I think there are too many people prepared to jump bandwagons, and not enough mechanics to see the ride through the whole way. Our adult pessimism is infectious; it is highly contagious and pervading. We are our own enemies, looking for shadows in the dark where there are none. We create the atmosphere and the mood in our societies and, if we want to create a peaceful neighbourhood, we must first create peace with ourselves. Start believing in the overall honesty of the people around us. Start trusting in our own tolerance, for do we not live relatively harmoniously already?

At the outset of the debate I attended, the participants were told to Google the "Peace Index". Apparently the UK is 34th out of 144 countries, presumably not a bad result until you look at us compared to the rest of our regional neighbours in Western Europe, where we are 5th from the bottom.

But, looking at Global Peace Index methodology, there are questions relating to government expenditure on the military, including the deployment of troops. Also, the ratio of security and police officers to civilians was included in calculating peace. Most telling of all is the perception of criminality in the country. Which just goes to show, the more peaceful you think the place you are living in is, the more it will become so.

SOHO THEATRE TOMORROW

Tomorrow at Soho Theatre. One of four poets on the Apples & Snakes stage... If I haven't already invited you, COME ALONG!! A well-deserved drink afterwards, yeah?

Tickets can be bought at sohotheatre.com, or at the Theatre itself. I'll be performing a never-heard-before "What I miss", which is based on when I was living in the Dominican Republic.

The other three poets are off-the-hook, FOR REAL. I've heard them! We're all very different and I'd definitely turn up just for the other 3 if I wasn't performing myself...

The whole idea was to inspire us to do something we'd never done before, which was to create our own 15-min epic poem. It definitely IS something I'd never done before, and will I do it again...? Well, find out on the night!

BIG CHILLING BABY!!!!!!

ON THE WAY TO BIG CHILLLLL!!

Hope to see you there!
Will be performing as part of Apples & Snakes set on Saturday

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

i'm moving!

my life is in boxes and bags
labels and tags
scraps of paper and other people's fags

my life treads dirt
heaves heavy and lifts
grows dusty in corners i've never known

throw me out and tape me up
because my life is no longer my own

i am just boxes and bags
labels and tags
forgotten scraps of paper and other people's fags

wwjd?

that wristband u gave me, i pinned to a condom and posted it to the vatican.
jesus wept.





(from another conversation about the pope who is apparently catholic...)

babbledabblecrabble

am i angry? no
anger is kinaesthic drive
energy connected
brain in gear
ain't no anger here

i am just weary

marrakesh argument

u asked me if i did kiss the ground when the plane landed
whether i felt reconnected with mother afrique
whether i did rebaptise myself in its sun and drink in its energy
so i told u i weren't in the mood for no afrocentricity

i told you my yoruba tongue got ripped from me half a milenia ago
discarded clinically like placenta and dropped in the atlantic
and then i told you that sometime even mothers go forget they own children
even though same pickney rub belly button and hold fast to she dress

and then i told you i don't need no mother to have piece and rest
i don't need no mother to have piece and rest...
you just choopsed and said
you still ain't answered my question

and i was going to say
that's the problem with today
too many people looking to harvest answers
in fields where only questions get cultivated
where the moment one is plucked
its seeds are scattered on the floor and a dozen more sprout up

what if i'd told u i did kiss the dirt floor
so hard till my lips went raw with mud and dust?
what if i told u i'd thrown myself down and rubbed myself in the clay
until my clothes were torn and my naked skin
was caked with its essence?

or what if i'd told u i spat on the ground and offered it as my libation?
what would it change?
who would it benefit?

because back here
im surrounded by the same gods that line the streets of marrakesh
inauthentic smiles and gestures that fold to frame the words
"viens ici, my frien'.... Obama!" "come look!"

back here
they may not be so bold
but blood still loses out to gold

and smiles fade when things don't get sold

and so i told u i don't need no mother to have piece and rest
no false idols hanging off my neck
no false ideology weighing down my shoulders
no strings to make my head look back

and i ain't buying in
or selling out
or anything...

i'm just telling it as i saw it that day
when u asked me if i kissed the ground when the plane landed
and i told u i weren't in the mood for ur ideology
i've done my history
chased my genealogy
gone beneath the surface and i make no apology
for saying what i said
even though u may not agree
and i just hope it doesn't change what u think of me

cos i'm proud of who i am
proud of who i was
and happy with my life
but at the moment where i'm at, i'm like
i don't need no mother to have piece and rest
and if u don't get where i'm coming from now
then it is what it is

end of


(rough summary/transcript of a heated conversation/argument about heritage/history in my own shorthand/scribble that i mulled over for days/weeks and kind of/not sure if i should delete/edit this... but it is what it is/ain't what it ain't).

Voting booth

I've been marking Xs since day one
Crossing my fingers
Carefully pinching my index finger
Against pencils that feel weary in my hand:
Hours of indecision and hesitation
Seconds of meaningless strikes across a page
I want change

I've been marking Xs
And it feels like an age
That I've been hunched over a booth just scanning names
As vague in my head as the promises behind them.
I want change

I've been ticking boxes for an age
Leaving behind my weightless sheet folded over
Just my sticky grey blemish
The traces of my existence.
I want change

But the change I want is as vague as the names
On the boxes that I scan
And the change that I crave
Can't be placed in a slot
I can't tell you what it is
But I know what it's not

I've been ticking Xs...
It's all pointless.
Just meaningless box-ticking
In isolation
I got to find me
Another polling station

I got to find me