David Fewster

A PROTEST POEM ABOUT PROTEST POEMS

(in 9 parts)

1.

Mainly because they don't work.

They have the shelf-life of a mayfly.

If a protest poem in the last 60 years

had been effective,

my 23 year-old daughter

would know who Nixon was.

2.

There is an expression in stand-up comedy, "Playing to the band."

It means addressing an audience already sympathetic to your viewpoint.

A multitude of sub-genres exist for the protest poet:

The MFA protest poem read at the local bookstore

which usually begins with the poet watching the news in the breakfast nook

and having to confront the atrocities of the world and their own privilege,

being sure to employ the Seven Types of Ambiguity,

while folks sit in folding chairs and nibble on wine & brie.

Sometimes they shed a tear and get

the stone-ground whole grain crackers soggy.

The slam poet whole rapid-fire agitprop delivered

to an audience of fellow travelers has to get at least

a dozen mini-ovations in 3 minutes in order to advance

to the finals and maybe get in a Nike ad or a movie

like Saul Williams, who lives in Paris now.

The viral poets who get a million hits because

their protest poem somehow involves a Marvel comics superhero

and be all like "Wow, I'm CHANGING THE WORLD!"

Publishers used to give them book deals

until they discovered the hard way

no one who reads something for free on their phone

is gonna shell out $15.95

Gutter-snipe street poets who gather in low dives and

chant diatribes of nihilistic rage and despair and bleak jokes

only to forget what they read the next morning.

I like this last group the best, but they are being driven out

of our big cities by the economic Darwinism

that is making them choose between beer and rent.

3.

This manifesto does not apply to protest songs.

Protest songs have a beat that people can march to.

Even Pete Seeger singing all 843 verses of "We Shall Overcome",

mind-numbingly boring as it is,

covers a lot of ground in 4/4 time.

Mao would have been proud.

4.

In 2003, the late Sam Hamill (Buddha rest his soul)

started an organization called "Poets Against the War"

which hosted events nationwide where local bards

read their poems protesting the Iraq War.

A couplle year back on Facebook, Sam, in ailing health,

was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't find

a suitable institution (Yale, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress,

Turlock Community College) willing to house

a complete archive of these works for time memorial, which by that time

consisted of--wait for it--20,000 POEMS.

Seriously? In our desperate desire to preserve at least a fraction

of our culture for future generations before the coming apocalypse,

one would think it might be necessary to prioritize.

I pity the archaeologist from across the galaxy (probably an intern)

whose job it is to plow through all these in an effort

to find out where our civilization went wrong.

"So, QUISP 7-1128, how do you conjecture

this ancient race went extinct?"

"Well, sir, apparently they were ALL POETS."

5.

The actual print anthology of "Poets Against the War", however,

(for those with long memories) was pared down to 150 entries.

Does anyone besides the poets who are in it and

their closest immediate loved ones even have a copy of this?

And some of those folks must have died, because

I see stray copies in used bookstores, where they will

no doubt sit until the wrecking ball converts

their brick & mortar home to new condos.

6.

Not that this phenomenon is limited to protest poetry.

It's true of every bloody anthology ever published,

with the exception of frigging "When I Grow Old, I Shall Wear Purple."

Pro-tip: the only reason to be in a poetry anthology

is for the off-chance that some Really Famous Poet is in it,

so you can say "I'm in a book with *insert name here*

and thus give the false impression that

you are somebody, too.

7.

On the other hand, Sam Hammill's book of translations

""Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing"

will last as long as English is spoken.

8.

Is "The Second Coming" a protest poem?

If so, I'll have to rethink the entire issue.

9.

In conclusion, although now we can all agree that

protest poems suck and are the work of whiny milksops,

poems about actual revolutions are WAY COOL.

William Blake's "The French Revolution",

Mayakovsky's odes to his Bolshevik comrades,

Diane di Prima's "Revolutionary Letters",

Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans"--

These aren't just poems, they're

Instruction Manuals for Whoop-Ass.

Because the only thing these people understand

is the WHIP.

Or, in the words of Teddy Roosevelt,

"Free versely, and carry a big stick.

And HIT the bastards with it,

and KEEP hitting them until

they beg for mercy.

And then, hit them some more..."