that I’ve tried to sabotage it myself at times too.
The best poems are unseen and unheard by anyone other than the person who wrote them and the persons they were intended for. They are read at funerals or between lovers or between daughters and fathers. They are kept within the family. Writer, audience, performer, performance and applause. It is the perfect journey for a poem: beginning, middle and end. The closest to that is a reader and a book.
‘The idea that poetry is a minority sport has never rung true with me. Ever.’
At the start of Rebel Without Applause is the quote: ‘if you are the big tree I am the small axe.’ It is a quote from ‘Small Axe’ by Bob Marley. I was a fan of Bob Marley before I knew I was Ethiopian. My father was a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines and co-piloted The Emperor, Haile Selassie. Although my father died in 1974 I still have a picture of him in which he has the exact same ring on his finger as Bob Marley had on his hand.
An Ethiopian man said, ‘Do you know what your name means? It is an unusual name.’ I told him that I didn’t. ‘It means Why?’. If you are not from Ethiopia please don’t think Ethiopians give their children questions as names. It is an unusual name in any culture. I had no idea what it meant until I was thirty-two. How could I be anything other than a poet with a name like ‘Why’?
PERCEPTIONS OF THE PEN
Well ‘I’
Well, I am a poet and it is my life.
I would slit my wrist with a pen not a knife.
Well, I am a poet from now until then.
My life is my paper, my knife is my pen.
Mother
Mother, what will I say to you?
Will I tell you about what I’ve been through?
Mother, will you criticise?
Mother, will you see it through my eyes?
Mother, what will you say to me?
It’s through your eyes I’d like to see.
Mother, will you criticise?
Mother, will you see it through my eyes?
Mother, what will you say to me?
Mother, will you read my poetry?
Am I just what you want me to be?
Mother, will you see it through my eyes?
Mother, what will you say to me?
Am I just what you want me to be,
Or, Mother, will you criticise?
Mother, will you see it through my eyes?
Ain’t No
Ain’t no clothes to wear, no
Ain’t nobody to know
Ain’t nowhere to come, nowhere to go
Ain’t no belongings that last
Ain’t no reminder of no past
Ain’t no reason to give
Ain’t no reason to live
Ain’t no love to take
Ain’t no love to fake
Ain’t no reason to cheat
Ain’t no body to beat
Ain’t no body to belong
Ain’t no one heard this song
Ain’t even got a tune
Ain’t even got a bloom
Ain’t no mother
Ain’t no father
Ain’t no sister
Ain’t no brother
Ain’t no light for my cigarette
Ain’t no cigarette . . .
Scream
Don’t take what I have because what I have is me.
Don’t steal my mind because it’s nearly free.
How can I stay unpolluted,
Live in this world and still keep my head?
The things that I’m seeing is mind-blowing insight,
And the war that I’m fighting is a mind-blowing fight.
And the love that I’m feeling is less than a drip in a stream.
And the feel that I’m feeling is scream . . .
So Near and yet So Near
There’s a man who lives in a London apartment,
And he’s really blowing his mind,
Says it’s the fault of the government.
And he thinks he’s going blind,
Because all he sees is darkness,
But he says it’s all a lark, yes.
There’s a beggar who lives on his weak, so weak, knees
And he says he’s losing his head,
Claims it’s the fault of the zombies,
And the people in power are the living dead.
Says he thinks he’s going to die,
But he knows it’s the living dead who lie.
There’s a teacher who lives in a school,
And he says he’s going wild.
He says he knows what they are doing,
And everybody is filed.
He says he’s going to learn
What the children should know,
Says he’s started to burn,
But he cannot melt the snow.
