When poets gather today, when poets perform, there is talk of revolution. Why? It stems from the horrors of Katrina and from the war in Iraq. It stems from the collapse of the educational system and from the violence of the police. And economically, people are just not making it.
There are so many ways that our society buffers everything. But the old buffers, even the Democratic Party, are losing ground. As these buffers begin to be pushed aside because people don't see them as viable anymore, you start to see revolutionary ideas spread through the political world, the economic world, the cultural world, and of course through poetry.
The poets themselves are highly marginalized in this country and so they can't help but express the issues of revolution, of social change, of healing--things that mainstream culture will not address. Our country is so practical-minded, all about business, all about making money. The bottom line. There's no room for poetry in the bottom line. But at the real bottom line, what are our lives and how do we express them? Through poetry, music, dance, art.
The true heartbeat of the culture today is on the periphery, not at the center. The political center is hollow, the cultural center is hollow, TV and mass media are hollow inside. Everything has started to go toward the periphery, which is outside. This is why there are so many more poets today--they come from the periphery. The periphery is growing and developing its own cultural centering. When you have a center that's hollow, the periphery has to re-center it. The whole idea of revolution is to eventually re-center the whole society.
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Poets work in the realms of language, passion, and imagination. Poets have the capacity to see further and feel deeper, to find viable alternatives to what's going on.
What are the goals of the revolution? What does society owe us? People make fun of this--"society doesn't owe anybody anything." But if that's true, then why even have society? The day we're born, we should be given all the resources and assistance we need so we can benefit and become full and complete human beings. A society that's based on profit, on getting over, and on expediency completely undermines any sense that we have a big purpose here, that every human being is valuable, that every human being can contribute. We need to focus on our collective needs, based on the premise that every human being needs to flower. Everyone's unique paths and destinies must be met. These are the goals of the revolution.
The revolution isn't about "Hey, I wanna overthrow something." It's about re-centering, re-balancing, and healing the world to provide for all human needs. We have to move forward, to recreate community on the basis of the way it should be, the way it always was for thousands of years before class societies--like capitalism--took over. With the advanced technology that we have in our possession today, we can get back to this on a much higher level. We can build new relationships that aren't based on exploiting one over the other, that aren't based on extracting profit, but are actually based on the traditional human communal understanding that we take care of each other and that everybody has a future.
Let us dream together. How can we re-imagine the world? How can we re-imagine our relationships? How can we begin to dream of a world in which there is no hunger, no homeless people? How can we dream of a world in which kids are not put aside and forgotten and attacked? How do we dream this? Partly in the dream is the answer. If you can imagine another world, you are already beginning to build towards it. Poetry, which is based on the imagination, is essential to accomplish this. We are here to create beauty out of the ugliness. That's revolution.
As poets, we should ask ourselves: How can we participate and help to make this new society a reality for everyone?
Luis J. Rodriguez has emerged as one of the leading Latino writers in the country with his award-winning poetry and children's books and best-selling memoir, "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." Call 800-691-6888 or e-mail info@speakersforanewamerica.com for booking information.
