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Rear Window - Saharawi poetry - Voices of Resistance
“displaced societies are of value; their issues are our issues” - cynthia basinet
Breaths of bus fumes And shuffling impatience. 'Where do you want to go?' The driver asks angrily. An old woman stutters and dithers and fumbles. 'Where do you want to go ... Love?' He asks again, This time more nicely. -Sam Berkson
Juvenilia by Sam Berkson
I play computer games each day trying to beat my best score. I read newspapers with large headlines and few words because I am bored in the mornings: They print photos of funny animals or x-rays showing stomachs which have swallowed unlikely objects.
I like TV Shows which encourage me to laugh at people made to seem of lower intelligence than myself. I fill the silence of my life fidgeting on the phone because I can’t stand silence or thinking on my own.
I am told what to eat and what not. My food is wrapped and labelled but I’ve never watched it grow, I am advised how to walk when it’s wet and to drink water when it’s hot. I have someone to watch my steps, going out and coming in, as guardian to my safety.
I have been tamed and chained, My brain power restrained In quantum mechanics, particle physics, economics or philosophy I could not summarise for you even the most simple of theory, and still I believe that a century ago people were dumber than I because I have a smart phone: although I could never in all my lifetime make one myself or explain how it works.
I am scared of bogeymen and spooks in the dark. uncomfortable with difference and customs unlike my own.
Obsessed with wealth, I take for myself first and haven’t learnt to share. I believe most people (myself not included) don’t know how to behave, and so I push for strong punishment and harsh laws to keep others in line.
If I were left alone I am told I’d run wild, I’m supposed to be an adult, but I’m living like a child.
(http://angrysampoetry.wordpress.com)
Mind-Sirens and Sand-Lines by Sam Berkson
There’s mad talented writers round here who’ll never be great. Had their minds twisted by the sirens of the state, a swirling battle cry that gets a man into a fighting state. Anywhere you look it’s kind of bait. Take, for instance, fifty years of welfare state, which, it seems fairly obvious to state, was never well fair, and then, when our thoughts are numbed up with the dumbed up double-dutch that doubles up as news-cover stuff, shepherding us to pledge our trust in Justin-fucking-Puddle-duck, they pull away the safety net and they do not even need to care.
Cos we’re out in the clubs smoking zoots round the back, we’re crawling across town selling posh blokes crack, we waste days in the pubs, growling at the Sun, adrift in the small hours, howling at the moon, if we work a bit harder we might get there soon.
They don’t need to care. It will be soup kitchen queues and cardboard city; sex-workers, crystal meth and surround sound TV; low level skirmishes touching us habitually; corrugated iron and gated prison homes; unaccountable security and unmanned drones.
The answer not in any colour of rag at the news stand. It’s not the red or the blue or the head in the sand. It’s turning up and learning up, conferring stuff, returning love, it’s drawing lines in the sand until we’ve mapped where we stand. Principles eternal, not ageb-ound. The playground game of merry-go-round resistance, I’m down with join-the-dots not spot-the-difference. We must clock what’s in common, pass it to the next woman and hear what she’s got now, things might seem lost now but we’ll try again; let them of the future know when they rise again, that back then, there were them who could dance with a pen, or sing a drumbeat out loud, make moves that could reach us, freeze-frame pictures that would leave us speechless; let them know that before them lived all sorts who did care; pass on the torch and keep the flame burning there.
If You Suspect It, Report It by Sam Berkson
Re:Versed show is back! Today, Monday (3rd Dec) on www.ntslive.co.uk 5-6pm.
Sam Berkson hosts an all woman show featuring Rosemary Hill, author of the best book on Stonehenge you're ever going to read. We've also got Salena Godden talking about - and reading from - her childhood memoir Springfield Road - and we got Hammer & Tongue Hackney guest poet Sophia Walker.
