Apocalypse Mouth
Apocalypse Mouth
Review of Molotov Mouths by Saab Lofton in Las Vegas City Life
Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, once said that poets and kings can't be friends, because a poet's job is to say things a king wouldn't want publicly known. This is exactly why the Outspoken Word Troupe -- the collective of authors from the anthology Molotov Mouths: Explosive New Writing (Manic D Press, $13.95) -- aren't likely to be invited into Oprah Winfrey's book club. Even though they more than deserve to.
Why do they? For far too long, the poetry circuit has been dominated by spoiled white kids whining about insignificant things. How many more times is the world supposed to applaud yet another poem about how breaking up is hard to do? "Life is cold, the night is dark, my soul is empty ... blah blah blah!" It's damn near apocalyptic in the suburbs, huh?
Molotov Mouths' Ananda Esteva was born in Chile -- where life actually was apocalyptic (because America put Augusto Pinochet in power) -- and in her piece "Memorias Chilenas" ("Chilean Memories"), she writes:
I see bodies
pale and bloated
floating down the Mapocho River
bodies of socialists, of teachers, doctors,
poor folks, your folk, and poets
immersed in swirling waters
red foam residue
Something a little bit closer to home? Dani Montgomery is a "queer" teacher from Tucson, who offers the following:
our america
gets up each morning
even though today she may be arrested
and he may be deported
even though she can't afford the rent
and he can't pay to see a doctor
even though death hovers low on the horizon
our america continues
to insist on itself
and with every morning
rises
A common theme found in both Esteva and Montgomery's work is the rapacious nature of the prison-industrial complex. In the opening poem, "Scent of Magnolia," Esteva asks: "How can we rise up when we're locked up?" While Montgomery's "A Question to the Guards at Juvenile Hall" asks: "How do you go home in the evening and hold your baby, touch your lover, cook food with the same hands that this afternoon fastened shackles around the wrists of a fifteen-year-old girl?"
James Tracy is probably the co-author with the most front-line experience, being a longtime organizer and coordinator of Right to a Roof (a part of San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness). His 15 "New World Orders" are to die for and should be on the walls of millions of homes in poster form. Here are a couple of examples:
15) If voting could change the world, it would be outlawed, but if it were completely ineffective, George Bush wouldn't have had to steal the election in Florida.
13) If most Americans have to ask "Why does the world hate us?" then we may already be doomed.
11) Patriotism means never having to say "I'm sorry."
And so on.
The last word should go to Raw Knowledge, a woman the book describes as "a working-class firebrand proud of her anarchist politics." In the poem "Fashion Starvation," she might as well be speaking directly to those who write poetry about nothing:
You sit there a slave to fashion, sigh, and say to me, "I don't want to spend my life fighting for a change that may never happen." MEANWHILE ... as another victim dies from starvation in exchange for your "sense of style," I hope you wanting to hasten the death of your own life is worth murdering others."
Saab Lofton's column Fear No Evil appears weekly in CityLife.
Review of Molotov Mouths by Saab Lofton in Las Vegas City Life
Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, once said that poets and kings can't be friends, because a poet's job is to say things a king wouldn't want publicly known. This is exactly why the Outspoken Word Troupe -- the collective of authors from the anthology Molotov Mouths: Explosive New Writing (Manic D Press, $13.95) -- aren't likely to be invited into Oprah Winfrey's book club. Even though they more than deserve to.
Why do they? For far too long, the poetry circuit has been dominated by spoiled white kids whining about insignificant things. How many more times is the world supposed to applaud yet another poem about how breaking up is hard to do? "Life is cold, the night is dark, my soul is empty ... blah blah blah!" It's damn near apocalyptic in the suburbs, huh?
Molotov Mouths' Ananda Esteva was born in Chile -- where life actually was apocalyptic (because America put Augusto Pinochet in power) -- and in her piece "Memorias Chilenas" ("Chilean Memories"), she writes:
I see bodies
pale and bloated
floating down the Mapocho River
bodies of socialists, of teachers, doctors,
poor folks, your folk, and poets
immersed in swirling waters
red foam residue
Something a little bit closer to home? Dani Montgomery is a "queer" teacher from Tucson, who offers the following:
our america
gets up each morning
even though today she may be arrested
and he may be deported
even though she can't afford the rent
and he can't pay to see a doctor
even though death hovers low on the horizon
our america continues
to insist on itself
and with every morning
rises
A common theme found in both Esteva and Montgomery's work is the rapacious nature of the prison-industrial complex. In the opening poem, "Scent of Magnolia," Esteva asks: "How can we rise up when we're locked up?" While Montgomery's "A Question to the Guards at Juvenile Hall" asks: "How do you go home in the evening and hold your baby, touch your lover, cook food with the same hands that this afternoon fastened shackles around the wrists of a fifteen-year-old girl?"
James Tracy is probably the co-author with the most front-line experience, being a longtime organizer and coordinator of Right to a Roof (a part of San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness). His 15 "New World Orders" are to die for and should be on the walls of millions of homes in poster form. Here are a couple of examples:
15) If voting could change the world, it would be outlawed, but if it were completely ineffective, George Bush wouldn't have had to steal the election in Florida.
13) If most Americans have to ask "Why does the world hate us?" then we may already be doomed.
11) Patriotism means never having to say "I'm sorry."
And so on.
The last word should go to Raw Knowledge, a woman the book describes as "a working-class firebrand proud of her anarchist politics." In the poem "Fashion Starvation," she might as well be speaking directly to those who write poetry about nothing:
You sit there a slave to fashion, sigh, and say to me, "I don't want to spend my life fighting for a change that may never happen." MEANWHILE ... as another victim dies from starvation in exchange for your "sense of style," I hope you wanting to hasten the death of your own life is worth murdering others."
Saab Lofton's column Fear No Evil appears weekly in CityLife.
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