Poetry and Politics

Below is a contribution I made to Poets for Corbyn  an e-book of 21 poems by various hands, just published, expressing support for what seems to be, to this contributor at least, a new movement on the left of British politics towards remaking the Labour Party after the fiasco of the recent election.  I don't like personality cults in politics but this seems to be different and an important re-alignment about which the conservative Labour pragmatists and old-fashioned Blairites seem to have nothing useful to say except to blow raspberries.

There are those who argue that, in Auden's much-quoted line, "poetry makes nothing happen", and the English, as opposed to many European or Latin American poets, have (nearly) always preferred this elegant fence-sitting to any kind of vulgar engagement.  Poetry can be crude and propagandist.  It can also be subtle, intelligent and resourceful when it engages with politics and partisanship is no worse for a poet than a citizen.  I am not a purist.

My contribution is in the Burns stanza I have used before, notably in my long poem Get Real! (2011). Burns didn't actually invent this stanza, though he was its best known practitioner.  It is sometimes called "the standard Habbie",  after the piper Habbie Simpson (1550–1620) about whom a Lament was was written in the form.  It's great fun to use. I hope it is also entertaining and amusing to read.

The ebook can be downloaded for free by following the link in my opening sentence.

J.C.

Like sheep who’ve scattered to the field’s high corner,

the commentariat – now hunted fauna –

together cling.

The practised put-downs, and the usual sneers,

predictable pandering to baser fears,

the lazy tricks that served for years

no longer sing.

Pundits and pollsters, penny-a-liners,

effortless liars and maligners,

pieces pitched,

to Guardian or 4 no longer hack it.

The zeitgeist’s moved; they can no longer track it

and there’s a note inside the salary packet:

you’re ditched!

Chancellor Osborne’s undeterred,

and gives his underlings the word:

attack!

Class-warrior of an antique kind

he makes his colleagues of one mind

to hound the workers from behind.

A pack

of snapping Tory dogs

emerging from the autumn fogs

exult.

The ‘enemy within’ attracts their curses

(that’s dinner ladies, carers, nurses

who learn there’s little in their purses).

It’s the cult

of settling scores, unleashing dogs of war

(though strikes are fewer than before).

They winch

their arses to the saddle, salivating,

excited by the prey that’s waiting,

eased by commentators’ Left-baiting:

a cinch.

Their anti-union bill’s revealed,

and like a rotten fruit when peeled

it’s vile

inside: more harsh than any iron regime

has yet to implement, or even dream,

where strikers must declare the theme

of any Tweet

before releasing it or face a fine or gaol:

that’s Britain now where oppositions fail

to fight.

Until J.C. discovers that the old and young

are eager to bite back, give tongue

to protest, scrap the song that’s sung

stage Right.

Its mandate twenty five per cent of votes,

the Government each day emotes:

‘Reform!’

until our ears become resistant to the sound,

detect the lie that is its constant ground,

refuse the claim that they have found

a ‘norm’.

Corbyn’s no knight in shining vest,

or bright Messiah from the West

(he’d say)

but someone who has found a way to voice

a fractured country’s need for choice,

to say we’ll make another kind of noise:

No way!