Communist Poets

[redcannon]

i have to do a school project on a poet. last year i did Kenneth Rexroth, the noted anarchist and member of the IWW.

i need a new poet this year, and i was hoping some of you had info or at least some names of any anarchist, communist, or anarcho-communist poets.

it would be a great way to shut up some cappies in class.

[which doctor]

Oooh, I love Kenneth Rexroth. You should really read The Relevance of Rexroth by Ken Knabb if you haven't already.

I suggest you look into Joe Hill and T-Bone Slim for your next project.

[Political_Chucky]

Well i'm not sure on his political stance, but I have read some of Jose Marti's work which is pretty nice. He was a Cuban Revolutionary of the Cuban Independence Movement and you've probably heard his lyrics in the song "Guantanamera." Heres an excellent site with his work http://www.exilio.com/Marti/PoesiaCF.html and one to his most famous http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/rosa/rosa.html. and heres more information on him. http://members.aol.com/enriques/index2.html

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

How about Victor Jara, the Chilean Socialist folksinger?

[Brownfist]

How about Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the famous South-Asian communist poet and founder of the Progressive writers movement?

[peaccenicked]

How about me? I am a communist poet.
This is my most overtly political one.


New Labour's War Anthem

The people's flag is stars and stripes,
The spin we made for media types
Though scoffers moan whenever we plan
To make the world American

'Democracy' and 'Freedom' we abuse
But you won't hear it on the news
And every tyrant we have made
will have his turn to be afraid

So bomb again and bomb again
Why won't the preists just say "Amen"
And those Anglican ministers say we have "no case"
But we must go on a bombing craze

Then raise the Armaggedon banner high
Beneath its blaze, our troops will die.
Though millions whine, and billions weep
We'll bomb Iraqis in their sleep

There is nowhere Saddam can hide
From our blatant genocide
And as we were once in C.N.D.
We cannot hide our hypocrisy

Paul Anderson 24th Feb 2002



Anyhow I am just kidding a bit. I regard poetry as a communist activity. A poet retreats from the world to commune more deeply on nature and his fellow beings. The most noted 'communist' poets, are Pablo Neruda, W Auden, Christopher Caudwell, Hugh McDairmid, and thre are many others, but poems have to speak to people and many different levels. Bad poetry only speaks in vain,prosiac, unemotive pictures.

[redcannon]

thanks a bunch, comrades.

more suggestions would be welcomed, but so far i'm looking at the poets you suggested.
:)

[manic expression]

I'm pretty sure Pablo Neruda was a communist (he won the Nobel Prize in Literature).

Garcia Lorca was also a leftist (he was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War).

[RedAnarchist]

John Brooks Wheelwright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brooks_Wheelwright) was an American Marxist from the early 20th Century

Cesar Vellejo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Vallejo) A Peruvian poet

Anarchist Poets (a list from Wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_poets)

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 01, 2007 04:10 pm
Garcia Lorca was also a leftist (he was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War).

Jose Marti's work which is pretty nice

Grr goddamn you both! :P

Anyway, these poets rock.

[Connolly]

How about Oscar Wilde.

Very famous here in Ireland and the rest of the world.


from link below:
What tends to get overlooked, and not accidentally, is Wilde's radical streak. Wilde was a self-proclaimed socialist, even if, as he himself once admitted, his socialism was much closer to anarchism

MARXISTS.ORG:

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/index.htm

The socialism of Oscar Wilde:

http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/15/15wilde.html

Bit about his social view:

http://www.wsws.org/arts/1997/jul1997/wilde1.shtml

The Oscar Wilde they Never Quote:

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2002/501/27854

[Fawkes]

Allen Ginsberg, though I don't know his exact politics.

[Janus]

Joe Hill? Billy Bragg? Paul Eluard? Langston Hughes? Carl Rakosi? Cesar Vallejo?

[Fawkes]

To whomever moved this: This would probably be better suited in Lit. and Films than Research and Online Classes.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Mao Zedong.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 04:58 pm
Mao Zedong.
Umm...jokes like that belong in Chit-Chat. This is for serious replies only.

[Janus]

This would probably be better suited in Lit. and Films than Research and Online Classes.
"Help" threads belong in R&E.


Umm...jokes like that belong in Chit-Chat. This is for serious replies only.
Mao actually did write poems in his youth though of questionable quality.

[Fawkes]

I just figured in Lit. and Films it would get more responses.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

I fucking love Oscar Wilde.

Oh, and Robert Frost is a great poet, and somewhat of a leftist as far as I know. See "Mending Wall".

[Faceless]

Bertolt Brecht (http://www.poemhunter.com/bertolt-brecht/poems/poet-6695/page-1/)
PrettyDamnedGood

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by FoB+February 01, 2007 10:01 pm--> (FoB @ February 01, 2007 10:01 pm)
[email protected] 01, 2007 04:58 pm
Mao Zedong.
Umm...jokes like that belong in Chit-Chat. This is for serious replies only. [/b]
That is serious, Mao was a great poet.


The PLA Captures Nanjing (1949)

Over Zhong Mountain swept a storm, headlong,

Our mighty army, a million strong, has crossed the Great River.

The city, a tiger crouching, a dragon curling, outshining its ancient glory;

In heroic triumph heaven and earth have been overturned.

With power and to spare we must pursue the tottering foe

And not ape Xiang Yu the conqueror seeking idle fame.

Were Nature sentient, she too would pass from youth to age,

But man's world is mutable, seas become mulberry fields.


Yellow Crane Tower (1927)

Wide, wide flow the nine streams through the land,

Dark, dark threads the line from south to north.

Blurred in the thick haze of the misty rain

Tortoise and Snake hold the great river locked.

The yellow crane is gone, who knows whither?

Only this tower remains a haunt for visitors.

I pledge my wine to the surging torrent,

The tide of my heart swells with the waves.

These are beautiful, despite the fact that they aren't in their original language.

Poems By Mao Zedong (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/mao.htm)

[Honggweilo]

Henriette Roland Holst, only i still need english translations

Also some great poems from Uncle Ho

A COMRADES PAPER BLANKET
New books, old books,
the leaves all piled together.

A paper blanket
is better than no blanket.

You who sleep like princes,
sheltered from the cold,

Do you know how many men in prison
cannot sleep all night?


AUTUMN NIGHT
Before the gate, a guard
with a rifle on his shoulder.

In the sky, the moon flees
through clouds.

Swarming bed bugs,
like black army tanks in the night.

Squadrons of mosquitoes,
like waves of attacking planes.

I think of my homeland.
I dream I can fly far away.

I dream I wander trapped
in webs of sorrow.

A year has come to an end here.
What crime did I commit?

In tears I write
another prison poem.


CLEAR MORNING
The morning sun
shines over the prison wall,

And drives away the shadows
and miasma of hopelessness.

A life-giving breeze
blows across the earth.

A hundred imprisoned faces
smile once more.


COLD NIGHT
Autumn night.
No mattress. No covers.

No sleep. Body and legs
huddle up and cramp.

The moon shines
on the frost-covered banana leaves.

Beyond my bars
the Great Bear swings on the Pole.


GOOD DAYS COMING

Everything changes, the wheel
of the law turns without pause.

After the rain, good weather.

In the wink of an eye

The universe throws off
its muddy cloths.

For ten thousand miles
the landscape

Spreads out like
a beautiful brocade.

Gentle sunshine.
Light breezes. Smiling flowers,

Hang in the trees, amongst the
sparkling leaves,

All the birds sing at once.

Men and animals rise up reborn.

What could be more natural?

After sorrow comes happiness.

And one after being released from prison.

FREE, I WALK ON THE MOUNTAIN
AND ENJOY THE VIEW
Mountains. Clouds.
More mountains. More clouds.

Far below a river gleams,
bright and unspotted.

Alone, with beating heart,
I walk on the Western Range,

And gaze far off towards the South
and think of my comrades.

[Coggeh]

The Socialist A.B.C.
When that I was a little tiny boy,
Me daddy said to me,
'The time has come, me bonny bonny bairn
To learn your ABC'.
Now daddy was a Lodge Chairman
In the coalfields of the Tyne,
From the Enid Blyton kind.
And that ABC was different
He sang;
A is for Alienation that made me the man that I am and B's for the Boss,
who's a bastard, a bourgeois who don't give a damn.
C is for Capitalism, the boss's reactionary creed and D's for Dictatorship,
laddie, but the best proletarian breed.
E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long;
and F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach, the first one to see it was wrong.
G is for all Gerrymanderers, like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname,
and H is the Hell that they'll go to, when the workers have kindledthe flame.
I is for Imperialism, and America's kind is the worst,
and J is for sweet Jingoism, that the Tories all think of first.
K is for good old Keir Hardie, who fought out the working class fight
and L is for Vladimir Lenin, who showed him the Left was all right.
M is of course for Karl Marx, the daddy and the mammy of them all,
and N is for Nationalisation, without it we'd crumble and fall.
O is for Overproduction that capitalist economy brings,
and P is for Private Property, the greatest of all of the sins.
Q is for the Quid pro quo, that we'll deal out so well and so soon,
when R for Revolution is shouted and the Red Flag becomes the top tune.
S is for sad Stalinism, that gave us all such a bad name,
and T is for Trotsky the hero, who had to take all of the blame.
U's for the Union of workers, the Union will stand to the end,
and V is for Vodka, yes, Vodka, the one drink that don't bring the bends.
W is for all Willing workers, and that's where the memory fades,
for X, Y and Z, me dear daddy said, will be written on the street barricades.
But now that I'm not a little tiny boy,
Me daddy says to me,
'Please try to forget the things I said,
Especially the ABC.'
For daddy's no longer a Union man,
And he's had to change his plea.
His alphabet is different now,
Since they made him a Labour MP.

:)

[Hate Is Art]

I find a lot of socialist poetry very dull, most really are sub-standard and not worth reading when there are a plethora of amazing non-socialist poets.

Allen Ginsberg was more about 'dropping out' then any kind of leftist agenda, although read his poem America which is fucking brilliant, not quite Howl but a great indictement of the American psyche. He was a big of fan of mysticism and odd religious beliefs, Wilde also became a Catholic in later life I believe, and was always a firm Papist, not exactly beliefs held by most Socialists really. Anyway Wilde's plays and fiction are a lot better then his poetry.

Brecht is probably your best bet for a Leftist poet.

Ginsberg's ' America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

[Pawn Power]

Marx was poet, though most of his poems were to and about Jenny.

[PRC-UTE]

I know of the communist poet John Hewitt. But I don't know if his poems are good or not, and I only know of the name from having spent time in the pub bearing his name.

[shadowed by the secret police]

United Fruit Co.

by poet Pablo Neruda (Nobel Laureate) from Canto General

When the trumpet blared everything
on earth was prepared
and Jehova distributed the world
to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors and other entities:
United Fruit Inc.
reserved for itself the juiciest,
the central seaboard of my land,
America's sweet waist.


It rebabtized its lands
the "Banana Republics,"
and upon the slumbering corpses,
upon the restless heroes
who conquered renown,
freedom, flags,
it established the comic opera:
it alienated self-destiny,
regaled Caesar's crowns,
unsheathed envy, attracted
the tyrannical reign of the flies:
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,
Carías flies, Martínez flies,
Ubico flies, flies soaked
in humble blood and jam,
drunken flies that drone
over the common graves,
circus flies, clever flies
versed in tyranny.
Among the bloodthirsty flies
the Fruit Co. disembarks,
ravaging coffee and fruits
for its ships that spirit away
our submerged lands' treasures
like serving trays.

Meanwhile, in the seaports'
sugary abysses,
Indians collapsed, buried
in the morning mist:
a body rolls down, a nameless
thing, a fallen number,
a bunch of lifeless fruit
dumped in the rubbish heap.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/47/043.html

[redcannon]

whos jennty?