BORN INTO THIS?

Charles Bukowski was listed as an influence of one of the Shake!rs for the Shake!’13 @SLCT week. Bukowski was a German -born American author, prolific poet, short story writer, columnist and novelist.  His work has inspired and influenced so many great writers and thinkers and he is often described as a dangerous mind.

 We thought we would share his powerful poem Born Into This:

 “...Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this...” ( an extract from Born Into This)

What do you think? Are we born into this reality Bukowski describes? Can we do anything to change it?

Videos of Shake! at Rebellious Media Conference

Those good people at RMC have now put up a great compilation of videos from Shake's session "The Unheard: Youth, 'the riots' and the media" at the 2011 conference in London.

Watch recordings from the session itself, plus interviews and poetry performed by Rotimi, Samia, Selina and Kadish (Leeds Young Authors).

 

Also watch interviews with Shake! poet-facilitators Sai and Zena from Ceasefire magazine's Adam Elliot-Cooper over on our videos page.

We had more good news from RMC organiser Gabriel Carlyle recently. He told us that once they'd digested all the written evaluation forms, Shake's session got the most number of glowing reviews. People were energised by hearing directly and unmediated from young people, and they loved the structure (a mix of poetry, commentary, and discussion).

This was the fruit of all that brilliant planning from the team: Selina, Samia, Ed, Sai, Rotimi, Jane. And big thanks to Ed from New Left Project who kept the team cooking across 4 cities in the run-up...

Don't throw activist histories away: The Huntley Conference on Arts & Activism, Culture & Resistance

El Crisis

There were over a 100 artists, activists, community workers, young people, archivists & conservators, educators, parents, grandparents, policymakers......taking part in talks, creative "Groundings" sessions, a parallel youth conference, music & poetry performances, from the fabulous El Crisis, younger talented artists, and the more experienced......discussing race and power, creativity and resilience, protest and activism.....and feasting on delicious food from Jollofpot, book stalls, all in the great facilities of London Metropolitan Archives.

Eric and Jessica Huntley

What was brilliant and so rich about this day was we were learning about art, activism and Black struggle through the legacy and networks of the two activists Jessica and Eric Huntley, now in their 80s, who arrived in London from Guyana in the late 1960s.

'Arts & Activism, Culture and Resistance' event, 18th February, London

Just booked tickets to this event for young people, artists and activists at London Metropolitan Archives near Farringdon. LMA have a big collection on anti-racist struggle in London in their Black Caribbean Community Archives*.

Looks really really interesting, with great artists running sessions including Roshini Kempadoo, Jean Joseph, Errol Lloyd, and includes a youth conference. Step Forward Youth with Gus John, Akala and others.

Spread the word.

*Eric and Jessica Huntley gave their collection to LMA and set up these annual events there. They are political activists from Guyana who came to Britain in the 1950s. Among many other activities, they set up a radical publishing company Bogle-l'Ouverture, promoting Black writers, thinkers, political activists. 

Mainstream Media Coverage of UK "Riots" compared to War Reporting: John Pilger & Greg Philo at the Rebellious Media Conference

We had an amazing and inspiring experience at the Rebellious Media Conference this weekend and a full house and lively discussion for our session on Unheard Voices: Youth,‘The Riots' and the Media. A proper write up and review of that event and more links soon but for now here is the discussion on the mainstream media's coverage of the UK August uprisings featuring John Pilger and Greg Philo. A more complete video featuring the same discussion is also available here.