The Artist must take sides:
They must elect to freedom or slavery—
We make our Choice, we have no alternative.²
Let our words, instead of endless litany,
Be an index, unhinging the foundations
Of every category & name forced upon us.³
The caged bird sings with a fearful Trill,
Of things unknown but Longed for still,
And his Tune is heard on the distant hill,
For the caged bird sings of Freedom!⁴
The difference between Poetry & Rhetoric is
Being ready to Die in place of your Children!⁵
The point of Art is: to produce Ourselves
Rather than that which enslaves us.⁶
The role of the Artist is to make
Revolution Irresistible!⁷
If we build Castles in the Air,
Our work shall not be lost:
That is where they should be!⁸
The cleanest Expression is that which
Finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one:⁹
Poets are the Unacknowledged
Legislators of the world!¹⁰
¹ Paul Celan tr. Ian Fairley, Gymnosperm
² Paul Robeson, Speech in Support of the Spanish Republic
³ George Abraham, The Palestinian/Queer Specimen’s Index
⁴ Maya Angelou, Caged Bird
⁵ Audre Lorde, Power
⁶ Guy Debord, Theses on Cultural Revolution
⁷ Toni Cade Bambara
⁸ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁹ Walt Whitman, Introduction to Leaves of Grass
¹⁰ Percy Shelley, In Defense of Poetry