Poetry: “the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.” That sounds like a poem to me!
The Love Poetry Hate Racism night recently at The Globe exceeded expectations. A friend who came along said it was the best night out she’d had in a long time. She also said that she’d been writing some words since that night and even her “inner dialogue” was poetry. How beautiful!
The space for the audience at The Globe is a sloped carpeted floor, with room to chill out and even lie down. It matched the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.
The night was proof that poetry is far from its reputation of being dull and boring; it is full of life, passion and fun. The Brisbane poetry scene is particularly exciting at the moment with lots of stuff going on and so open to new people on the scene.
I was enthralled by the use of the music and poetry, and it got me into Brissie band The Golden Virtues. A fun and inspirational night; can’t wait for next year’s Love Poetry Hate Racism.
Here’s the poem I read during the open mic section (that I wrote that day!):
RACE FOR LIFE
What race are you?
What defines the race you belong to?
Is it the shape of your nose
Or the colour of your skin,
Your hair
There’s no DNA difference there.
The only race I know
Is the human race.
So don’t let others fool you
Into believing the stories about other races -
The arms race
Drugs race
Race for oil
And now
The race for water and for food.
They’re all just races
Designed to dominate
And people’s inability
To appreciate
To accept
To take action
To understand
That not everyone
Belongs to the same
Lowest common denominator
As themselves.
So many issues get reduced to race,
Creating wars
And
Racism -
Highlighting the differences between you and me
And what could be
A sweet relationship
Among members of Earth’s race…
Instead it’s become
An ‘us’ and ‘them’
And who are we
To be party of reality
When all we want is the imaginary world of
Peace, not war.
Well I’m going to choose my lines
While I fight with words
Because
I Love Poetry, and Hate Racism.
