Poem of the Week: Lillian Allen

                     

Broken   

The boy is broken on the sidewalk

The sidewalk is broken beneath him

His colour is back (not black)

Because it was washed out

Worrisome for his aunt

Whose leg was taken to save her life

No, not diabetes but from shrapnel            Flying

What have we forgotten to say

to give the heart ease

Just out of diapers when learning to walk

the body seeks an inherent language of peace

What do you wish to be?

Happy, I'm sure

You may ask;

Whose voice is in my head, so fully formed?

So old and heavy with pain and venge

Behind the lead(er) passage is set

Funeral is the badge

Language now frozen symbols

Symbols like bells calling

Calling to the divide

Fists and blows and broken

Splayed like shrapnel on the sidewalk

Fall away   fall away

What do you wish for the world

What do you wish for your heart

Boy broken on sidewalk

Sidewalk broken beneath boy

 

-Lillian Allen 

Used by permission.  

 

Lillian Allen has returned to the stage with full vigor in 2012, launching her new reggae dub poetry/spoken word album Anxiety. Allen, who grew up in Jamaica, immigrated to North America as a teenager, is internationally recognized as a godmother of dub lyricism, rap, and spoken word poetry. Her debut book of poetry, Rhythm An' Hardtimes became a Canadian best seller, blazing new trails for poetic expression and opened up the form. Her other collections, Women Do This Everyday and Psychic Unrest are studied across the educational spectrum. Her literary work for young people includes three books: Why Me, If You See Truth, and Nothing But a Hero.   

Allen is also a recognized authority and activist on issues of diversity in culture, cultural equity, cross cultural collaborations, and the power of arts in education. She is a professor of creative writing at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). She has also held the post of distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Canada's Queen's University and University of Windsor.  She was a featured poet at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010. 

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.    

Photos from Thursday Evening Reading

Many thanks to Jill Brazel for the amazing photographs here.


Francisco Aragόn reads.


Lillian Allen, dub poet


Mark Nowak


Nancy Morejόn


Lillian Allen and Nancy Morejόn sign books for festival goers.


Co-Director Melissa Tuckey and Program Associate Abdul Ali

All Photo Credits: Jill Brazel

Poem-of-the-Week: Lillian Allen

The Refugee

Silence rocks the night
nerve stretch tight
snapping left and right
anger peels…
a straight faced appeal
to the Canada that can
to save him

no one appeared
or dared to care
for the solitary heart
that paced the night

morning brought light
more panic and fright
for the vacant of days
that faced him

he ran from the light
took a balcony dive
plunges his life
to the pavement below
that plagued him

nothing resolved
a few problems got solve
two months rent defrayed
the credit companies got swayed
on his apartment a sign says
Now Renting

-Lillian Allen

From Women Do This Every Day (1993), used by permission.

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Lillian Allen is an award-winning Canadian poet, fiction writer, playwright, and cultural strategist. As one of its lead originators, she has specialized in the writing and performing of dub poetry, a highly politicized form of poetry, which is sometimes set to music. Her recordings, "Revolutionary Tea Party" and "Conditions Critical," won Juno awards in 1986 and 1988 respectively. Her publications include Theorize This (2004),Psychic Unrest (Insomniac Press, 2000), Women Do This Every Day (Women’s Press, 1993), Nothing but a Hero (Well-versed, 1992). Her many recordings include “Freedom & Dance,” 1999, and “Conditions Critical,” 1988. A past member of the Racial Equity Advisory of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Experts Advisory on the International Cultural Diversity Agenda, past executive member of the Sectoral Commission on Culture and Information of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, Allen was named a Foremother of Canadian Poetry by the League of Canadian Poets in 1992.

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Allen will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness,March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism—four days of creative transformation as we imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change. For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Split This Rock
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