POETIC LICENCE

Acclaimed Irish poet Fred Johnston maintains that poem’s first responsibility is to be a poem’.

He means, I suspect, that a poem should not therefore be a newspaper article, a novel, a sermon or a lecture – poetry is a distinctive and different animal from other kinds of writing, almost all of which takes the form of prose. In order to deserve its name, a poem must actually be a poem.

Does it follow, then, that poetry cannot deal in serious facts, in narration, in religious or academic matters? Does it mean that there is no place in poetry for politics, for instance? Of course it doesn’t. One of the joys of poetry for me is that its interests and curiosities are universal; nothing is sacrosanct.

So what does it mean ‘to be a poem’? We could spend a long time discussing this, but I offer one possible definition: a poem is a distillation of words and images that conspire to touch the head by way of the heart.

Rants, diatribes, religious dogma and political manifestos are not poetry. Their messages may very well be worthy, even important, but poems they certainly are not. The best poetry is subtle, allusive, understated – and all the more powerful for it. It asks its readers or listeners to consider, to empathise and to think, not simply to react to some loud populist wail.

What then of protest poetry? Some of the most powerful work in recent memory has protested acts of violence, degradation and inhumanity, as South Africans know better than most. Yet protest takes many forms and much of it is anything but lyrical. The best protest poetry, however – real poetry – simply has to be respected: it has changed the world and continues to do so. Here is Fred Johnston’s superb poem Conflict, published for the first time with his generous permission: “that's sufficient, to be word enough/ in landscapes of silence”, he says, and I cannot argue.

Conflict

I want to write a poem of protest but I'm aware I might upset someone I might upset you this is the difficulty; how to protest softly how to smack the metal without putting a dent in it how not to become an enemy of the state of poetry, which has spies everywhere - how to infiltrate, remain invisible to pass through checkpoints and not have my words confiscated to have no part of me put at risk yet to make a sound, a mousey squeak perhaps, but a sound nonetheless - a sound I can call my own yet a note which rings out somewhere under the rubble, in the drains, in the bombed air or does nothing else but simply be - that's sufficient, to be word enough in landscapes of silence - to put that word in a single mouth a miracle in itself, a rage in a small thing. But can I do this and stay harmless, out of the watch of prizes, honours, my own ambition? Can I hurl my words and run away? ‘every