"Power fears poetry" Carolyn Forché, May 2016.
The above quote emerged from a 'Human Rights and Poetry' conversation between two prominent writers and human rights defenders, Carolyn Forché and Shami Chakrabarti. Part of the Poetry Festival held annually by Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, the discussion was a free event. Just hours before it began, Chakrabarti published an article with The Guardian titled 'Poetry is a perfect form to challenge human rights abuses'. In it, she positions Newcastle as an appropriate place to host such a conversation, particularly as the University conferred a doctorate to 'Christian pastor and social revolutionary', one Martin Luther King.
Listen again to 'I have a dream'. This is one of, if not the most powerful political speeches ever made. Its resonant image making, rhythm, textual borrowings and repetition demonstrate poetic language to be at its heart.
Listen again to 'I have a dream'. This is one of, if not the most powerful political speeches ever made. Its resonant image making, rhythm, textual borrowings and repetition demonstrate poetic language to be at its heart.
Just five months before his assassination in 1968, Newcastle University made Martin Luther King an honorary Doctor of Civil Law. Significantly, this was the first and only such recognition of his civil rights work made here in the UK. The ceremony conferred the title, which means to award, bestow or decorate. Of Latin origin con and ferre, confer means to 'bring together'. It also means to talk. Martin Luther King coming to Newcastle provided not only an opportunity for him to speak to those in attendance and for the university to speak formally about the relevance and resonance of his work, the event itself was talked about and as I write this today proves we're still talking about it now, coincidentally, during Black History Month.
As a student of creative writing at Newcastle, I feel we have historically brought people together to engage without prejudice. The NCLA continues this tradition in hosting a vast array of international writers. Our honoring the significance of Martin Luther King set the standard for our institutional obligation to promote a dialogue of equality, not just on a personal and local level but a global one, uniting through language to demonstrate solidarity, to 'bring together' and discuss our ideas, openly and without bias.
There is then, a subversive thread of solidarity running from past to present here at Newcastle. Dr King's acceptance speech at his doctoral ceremony, below, shares much of the same optimism expressed in the closing paragraphs of a public statement from Professor Chris Brink, the outgoing Vice Chancellor at Newcastle University. Through both flows the same spirit of solidarity and belief in our capacity for change. Dr Brink speaks openly about the impact of Brexit upon the academy, calling us 'citizens of the world'. Dr King famously fought fiercely for equality, echoed in his doctoral speech in which he highlighted our commonality as humans, bound by 'an inescapable network of mutuality'. His speech below is just as relevant and commanding today, as it was in 1968.
This idea of being a 'citizen of the world' and part of a wider network points to Forché's definition of Poetry of Witness existing in a social space, a 'place of resistance and struggle', in which the poet can, as a fellow world citizen, produce language with the power to subvert and the potential to elicit change. Today we need only look to the crisis in Calais and language used define refugees to understand how words continue to be used to dehumanise. Swarms. Floods. Migrants. Or as I would much prefer it, language can be used to remind us of our humanity. Perhaps in writing without an agenda, we can do so unwittingly, simply by engaging the reader in an act of empathy. Through writing and reading, I believe we can keep reminding ourselves and others we are citizens of the world and as Dr King says "even hearts may be changed in the process".
Carolyn Forché and Shami Chakrabarti discuss many of these themes in a contemporary context below in this film, an extract of their 'Human Rights and Poetry' conversation captured here in Newcastle. It concludes with a reading of Forché's potent example of poetry of witness, 'The Colonel'. Shared here with thanks to NCLA.
