‘When the Revolution Comes’
— jayy dodd
Guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems and essays
There’s a helpless & apparent endemic across the literary community on how to face the treachery that is our current administration. While the legislative impact is still unfolding, the obliteration of language is disheartening, both for truth-telling & art. Recently, I’ve been digging into the poets & writers from the Reagan & Nixon eras to find what language was used as resistance. I turned to the Black Arts Movement, revisiting favorites from Gil Scott-Heron & Sonia Sanchez, finally getting hooked to this poem / track from The Last Poets’ 1970 release ‘When the Revolution Comes’. The lyrics built on prophetic refrain & cultural (though dated) fantasies of the future echo over the rolling repetitions of “revolution” maintained by a bombastic chorus. Our art needs this intention again. Our words needs this level of urgency. We need to bring prophecy as resistance back to poetry.