Poets.

[RotStern]

Are there any good Communist poets out there?
I know of Bertolt are there some more?
Particularly, I once read a poem on here by a German poet I think it was called Maschinenbrecher or something. :D

[Invincible Summer]

"Good" is subjective. I know Mao was a poet though I'm sure his stuff is more poetic in the original Chinese

[The Vegan Marxist]

Are there any good Communist poets out there?
I know of Bertolt are there some more?
Particularly, I once read a poem on here by a German poet I think it was called Maschinenbrecher or something. :D

Me! :thumbup1: lol

Nah, but I am a poet who has 3 books published so far.

[jake williams]

MAHMOUD DARWISH! Palestinian national hero.

[which doctor]

Dylan Thomas and Pablo Neruda are the only two I can think of, but I don't know poetry that well.

[black magick hustla]

mao is a fucking horrible poet. mayakovsky is really good though:

A rhyme's
…
a barrel of dynamite.
A line is a fuse
that's lit.
The line smoulders,
the rhyme explodes –
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.

-----

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I know Herman Gorter was a poet, not read enough of his stuff to know if it's any good though. Also Linton Kwesi Johnson, the dub poet. Neruda's meant to be good as well. Long discussion on the subject here: http://libcom.org/forums/history/communist-poetry-23092008

[Belisarius]

don't forget bertolt brecht (i particularly like "an die nachgeborenen")!

[Belisarius]

I know Herman Gorter was a poet, not read enough of his stuff to know if it's any good though. Also Linton Kwesi Johnson, the dub poet. Neruda's meant to be good as well. Long discussion on the subject here: http://libcom.org/forums/history/communist-poetry-23092008
i've read some gorter, but it seems to have nothing to do with socialism at all. he was an impressionist, so he generally made long description of everyday phenomena, it's not bad, but there are better dutch impressionists (Kloos for example)

[blake 3:17]

Benjamin Peret, LKJ, T Bone Slim.

I'm keen on the Left of English Romantics (hence my handle...), so Blake and Shelley definitely.

[Madvillainy]

i've read some gorter, but it seems to have nothing to do with socialism at all.

Well he had a poem about workers councils, I think. Don't remember it being any good though. I think most poems about socialism/communism are generally quite crap anyways.

[Belisarius]

Well he had a poem about workers councils, I think. Don't remember it being any good though. I think most poems about socialism/communism are generally quite crap anyways.
the only one i've seen to pass the test is Brecht (he's also known for his plays)

[x359594]

Benjamin Peret, LKJ, T Bone Slim...

Added to the above in the surrealist tradition are Andre Breton, Franklin Rosemount, Penelope Rosemount, Mary Low.

[Weezer]

Allen Ginsberg.

Check out his poem, America. (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html)

[Belisarius]

To Posterity




1.



Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.

I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil --
Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!

2.

I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

3.

You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think --
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.

For we went,changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.

For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.

But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do no judge us
Too harshly.

translated by H. R. Hays

the original german is here:

http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/libraries/feuchtwanger/exhibits/Brecht/Nachgeborenen.html

[Angry Young Man]

I'm keen on the Left of English Romantics (hence my handle...), so Blake and Shelley definitely.

The other Romantics can kiss my arse though. I've a collection of Keats with about as much inspiration as an episode of Hollyoaks. Plus I had to do the Lyrical Bollocks for A level: nursery rhymes.

[theblackmask]

Marcel Martinet was a poet who helped lead French resistance to Word War I, and hung out with Trotsky, although, afaik the only English translation of his works are in a book by George Piazis.

[MarxSchmarx]

Nazim Hikmet is my favorite commie poet, although I've only read his works in translation.

Here's one he wrote from his deathbed:

Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.

The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.

Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.

Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.

But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.

As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.

Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.

Moscow, Barviha Hospital

[Devrim]

Also Linton Kwesi Johnson, the dub poet.

I used to be his postman.

Devrim

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

while I don't think Federico Garcia Lorca identified as a comunist, he was a briliant poet. It is tragic that he was murdered by Franco's men. If I could go back in time I'd want to meet Federico Garcia Lorca.