I am thinking back to Saturday, June 6, at the 100 Thousand Poets for Change World Conference in Salerno, Italy. We’d been talking all day about “Art and Activism” and then, “The Oral Tradition,” and then we had a three hour poetry reading. It was great, but also a bit grueling and we were all rather worn out. So what did we do? First we ate a delicious meal in the sanctuary, specially catered for us by a local osteria. Then, of course, we danced.
The band was Compagnia Daltrocanto. They play traditional Neopolitan music, which to my ear was a kind of Latin, Italian, Greek, Macedonian mash-up with some hints of Scottish (due to a wind instrument that sounded something like a bagpipe). After a day filled with so many words, it was great to cut loose. There was a lot of sweating.
And then, “the young poets” announced that the midnight open mic would be done as a walking tour through the streets of Salerno, culminating down at the sea. It was late. I am old (ish). But I had to ask myself, how often in this life does a person get to walk down to the Tyrrhenian Sea and say poetry? With a bunch of other poets? I don’t care if I’m old (er). I would have to be pushing 90 to pass on an opportunity like that.
And so, I went. The poetry that night was intense and had an oratory nature. There were litanies, diatribes, and hip-hop rhymes. My poems are usually quiet and philosophical, and when you are out past midnight speaking poems in the streets of a foreign land, you want something a bit more, well, happening.
In my purse, I was carrying a book of poems written by school children that I had gotten earlier that day from a new friend, Menka Shivdasani, who is the 100 Thousand Poets for Change coordinator in Mumbai, India. The Music of the Spheres is a compilation bringing together poems that children have written over several years in conjunction with the 100TPC festivities there. Here is one I read:
What’s This All About?
Solemn and sober, loving and calm
Tranquil and serene, two fingers of the palm,
White like a dove, sweet as love
Calm as ever, in today’s day, hard to remember.
I’m not part of your world,
I feel so left out!
All that lives in your world
Is war and noise, what is this all about?
Why don’t you be a little civilized?
Join hands and don’t fight,
Ghandhiji, Mandela, take something from them,
Hold up a white flag,
Be peaceful like them.
Truce, harmony, they’re different forms of me,
If you are any of them, you’re of a kind like me!
Malvika Mehra
Bombay International School
Class – 5
As Menka writes in the book’s forward,
“The writing in this book represents the poets of tomorrow. Some of them, no doubt, will continue to write despite the responsibilities that they will face as grown-ups. They will hone their craft, trim the rough edges, and mature into serious writers. As they do this, hopefully they will remember the concerns they had as children, which prompted them to create the poems in this collection.
“This is the generation that will build the world of the future. If we can sensitize them to issues that matter at an early age, then perhaps there is some hope that they will make this world a better place. As adults and teachers, it is our job to encourage young ones, but the truth is, in our strife-torn era there is a great deal that we can learn from them, too.”
There we were, a bunch of poets standing under the moon in Salerno. We had taken to the streets to share some poems. I was swept away by the thought that deep in our hearts, we really are all still children, looking to make life fun, carefree, and enjoyable. No matter how many years our bodies live on this earth, inside, we continue to need the same things that all children, all human beings, need: love, friendship, respect, expression, good food, music, dancing, understanding, attention, and laughter. Lots and lots of laughter. Let me close with another poem from a wise soul in Mumbai:
Thinking of the World
I’m sitting here in India,
Thinking of the world,
The world I’m gonna grow up in,
The world I want to twirl.
No World War I
No World War II
No World War III or after.
Just peace and love,
And smiles and hugs,
And care of one another.
Just peace and love,
And care and hugs,
And lots and lots of laughter!
Keya Bajaj, Bombay International School, Class – 4
Great and inspiring!
Posted by: Michael Rothenberg | October 20, 2015 at 12:36 PM