Found this site about the artist Labi Siffri, the section that begins "If you
read" explains perfectly my feelings, about how we each understand or
misunderstand, things we hear people say, or the things that they may write.
Just as we now pass judgement on something that happened 20, 50, 100 years
ago, Bloody Sunday in northern Ireland, Deaths that occured in "Civil Rights"
marches and protests in the sixties, the treatment of Confederate and Boer
war families in US or British concentration camps, or the issue of Slavery.
We like to think we would never be involved in anything like
that, but we are looking back with modern eyes, drawing on our expeience and
knowlege of today, if we were there, even if we thought it was wrong, we
would have carried out those orders. It is easy to be critical from afar,
when circumstance no longer affects us. Fred B
"The statement "I am Black" has radically different meanings when addressed,
on the one hand, to a member of the white supremacist group "Aryan Nations" &
on the other, to a member of the Bantu Nation of Southern Africa.
As with "Black", so with "Gay", "a Man", "English", "British", "Middle-aged"
or "an un-affirming childhood". Your interpretation of these vague
generalities, verging on abstraction, says more about you than about the
person supposedly addressed. As you can see, I am wary of "the truth" of
biography & autobiography.
Like biogs of nations they should not be taken at face value. If you wish to
know something of me ...read my work, bearing in mind that the poem you read
is not the poem I have written. The poem you read is your interpretation of
the poem I have written."
Labi Siffre is the composer & performer of the song (Something Inside) So
Strong; the author of 3 poetry books: Nigger, Blood On The Page, & Monument;a
stage adaptation of 4 folk tales from around the world: TaleSpin, devised &
directed by Jack Holloway at the Wilde Theatre, Bracknell, & a one act play:
DeathWrite, staged at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, & later, televised by HTV
(both directed by Phil Clark).
After 9 albums, further hit songs, Watch Me, It Must Be Love, Crying,
Laughing, Loving, Lying & My Name Is, 37 years as a writer, a multitude of
international performances as a musician &/or poet, the sampling of his
musical work by artists such as Jay-Z, Eminem, Wu-Tang Clan & the IRA (this
certainly is the age of irony) Labi Siffre has no interest in nostalgia, is
tied to the work rather than the applause (though applause is nice) &
continues to pursue refractions in the corner of a blind man's eye. His
excellent website can be found <A HREF="http://www.so-strong.com/";>here</A>.
http://www.sampler-poetry.freeuk.com/wizzbo.html
