Let's play a game.
Let's peel back the skin of the city
and rearrange its insides till
we have created a strange kind of beauty
we don't recognise. Let's move this city's landmarks
like chess pieces; take the London Eye and
roll it to the adges of the city,
drag the Tate into zone five,
have the Royal Opera House playing
in outskirt basement halls,
grab some chicken and chips via the London Coliseum.
Classrooms become their own theatres
so that young people can unfurl their
aches into creative roars. For the shy ones
the pen becomes a microphone
to their power and those words travel further
than the lulls of their stomachs. Instead
those notebooks soliloquies become a future
bouquet of verses blossoming into the mouths of thespians.
Art galleries are not echo chambers
of prestige. Instead their doors have become
a fleshy open smile, their tongues speaking in
a language of visual miscellany, Graffiti masterpieces
are hanging with Cézanne and Monet. There are
Dali moustaches on corridors twitching and beckoning
young people to find new works of art to get lost in.
Workshops are being run by Barka,
wide floors and windows for children to paint on
Young people are composing digital sonotas
in their rooms and we've taken their roofs off.
We've unplugged their headphones so that
those tsks tsks in their ears have now become a siren of noise
the sky has broken into an orchestra of patois symphonies
there's grime-fused electro sprinkled with classical undertones,
rap lyrics chasing bhangra, bouncing off of buildings,
the sky a new constellation of sounds
pulsating like shooting stars across the city.
Let's play this game,
let's play it everywhere.
Till we do not know where the
highs and lows of this city
begin and end,
till the backbone of London is a
helix of hybrid noises, words, neon colours and shapes
for young people to skip and dance across.
So that wherever they go
their footprints will leave traces
of the city they played in.
So that wherever they go
they are left reeking
with this strange kind of beauty
and they will not live less
they will not live less
they will not live less.
By Selina Nwulu
Young Poet Laureate for London 2015/2016
A Strange Kind of Beauty was commissioned by cultural education charity A New Direction, as a response to the challenges young Londoners face in contributing to the creative life in the city.
Watch an animation of the poem at www.anewdirection.org.uk/a-strange-kind-of-beauty
RSA Journal Issue I 2016
He Was born in Alabama. He Was bred in Illinois. He Was Nothing goal Plain black boy. Swing low sweet swing low sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy.When I met Brooks That day in 1967, She Had Recently turned fifty-old enough to be the hardest by respecté of Black Youth and young enough to return Their respect. I Was twenty-five, HAD published one book of poetry, Black Think (1966), with a second book, Black Pride , coming early the next year from Broadside Press of Detroit. I Was not sure about what I Was searching for, purpose When I found her That sun-filled morning on Chicago's South Side in a community HAD others neglected and forgotten, I found an answer. The poetry workshop Eventually Moved to her South Evans Avenue home Where It continued to meet weekly. Her criticism of my poetry as well as others Was firm, non-patronizing, always Encouraging us not to reinvent a poem goal to Improve upon it. I remember how she wanted us to be conscious of language and form. I remember her telling us as excessive use of profanity That Was lazy writing. I do not know if I toned down After That, more goal I Was Aware of When and how I used Those expletives. As the cam workshop to year end, the two of us continued to meet weekly. She Would take me with her on her readings and Encouraged me to read my poetry there. Our familyhood Lasted for over thirty-three years, and in fact she is still with me every day. Her smile, her voice, her example, and her words continue to encourage, nurture, and keep me grounded and Committed to the work-poetry, editing, teaching, and publishing-that she Encouraged me to do. Finally, her greatest lesson to us all is that serving one's community as an artist means much more than just creating art.