FRANK MEINTJIES

Poetry has its own place in the world, along with its own tools and devices. These are not a closed set but include aspects such as form, the use of language, and— in the framing I use in my poetry workshops— the skillful combining of structure, sound, and meaning.

What happens when poetry is harnessed to directly aid a cause, to support a movement, or to speak out on an issue? Not always, but often, poetry struggles when it is harnessed to more direct purposes — for example, when it serves as a vehicle to deliver calls to action or to speak out against acts of social injustice.

Not only is it difficult to write such poetry (because one must struggle to ensure the message does not suffocate the aesthetic means needed to effectively carry the message), but penning such work also opens the poet to criticism. On the one hand, alongside bona fide criticism related to the quality of their work, the poet knows they will receive extra scrutiny precisely because their work, when used as part of transformative arts practice, can be said to “unsettle unjust orders [and] inspire new visions”^{[1]LeBaron, cited in STIAS, 2018}.

On the other hand, poets who engage with political themes often face rigorous critique from critics who regard themselves—or are regarded—as custodians of the genre and defenders of aesthetic principles, and who generally take issue with political themes in poetry. One of the latter has been Njabulo Ndebele, who, from 1984 onward^{[2]Sole 2005}, criticised struggle poetry and who, examining the work of anti-apartheid writers, famously asserted: “We must not pamphleteer the future. Nor should we pamphleteer the past.”^{[3]Ndebele 2006: 152} He cautioned South African writers that, in their quest “to recreate the entire social order, we must avoid the way of the manipulative pamphlet.”^{[4]Ndebele 1987:152}

Others, ones who were not writing from within the anti-apartheid cultural movement, have also weighed in on this issue. Douglas Skinner, for example, examining a 153-page anthology featuring 23 South African writers, meditated on “what poetry ought to be about and how it should be written.”^{[5]Skinner 1997:197} He bemoaned “the corrosive effects of political determinism on art.”^{[6]Skinner 1997:197} While acknowledging “the essential gesture, (namely) an extension of poetic range by the inclusion of new voices,” he questioned the inclusion of all but a handful of writers in the collection. “Not that everyone shouldn’t write – they should…. But calling oneself a poet does not make it so.”^{[7]Skinner 1997:94} Clearly, Douglas and others are skeptical about using poetry, at least in more direct ways, for social change.

These remarks, taken as a broad framing for this review, are occasioned in general through considering Abigail George’s offering but also by George’s reference, in the title, to her anthology as “struggle poems”.

The lines in this collection articulate a depth of emotions, and often these are starkly conveyed. In It is time for me to hide now, George notes that “the dead are everywhere” and highlights the reaction of the poet:

Something in me
is so wounded.
Who knew genocide
could taste so bitter.

At times, the intensity of what is being witnessed appears to propel the lines into the prosaic. The poet writes that “There are/ no more trees in Gaza. There are/ only refugees in Palestine and dead/ children lying in unmarked graves” (Antigone …).

Although calls to action at the end of poems typically work well in spoken word settings, they fall flat in written work and issue-based anthologies. They are redundant. The book itself is a call to action, and may mostly be bought by the converted, anyway.

In It’s time for me to hide now, however, George handles the matter deftly. She asserts, “It is time to say/ good night to war/ and wake up to peace … It is time to find new poets.”

The endings of several poems are less successful, leaning towards the banal and sentimental, whereas, in the context of genocide, anger may be a more appropriate response. This is the case where the poet implores God: “Look at the sadness in my eyes/ Let the sun and grass grow in every soldier’s / heart. Let every soldier on both sides hear a / child’s laughter in the barrel of the gun” (God, why are you …?).

In some of the poetry, the poet refers to her own experience – the impact of the killings in Gaza on her. “I close my eyes/and feel the fall of empires around me … Smoke/ Bombs/ Shelling,” she writes in I saw Anna Akhmatova in a dream. In another, she adds: “My face is now empty, made up/ of lonely nights, Palestinian-Israeli/ conflict, the ball found in a refugee/ camp. I wake, get out of bed. Barefoot / I walk to the kitchen.” The centrifugal point of the poems is here, not over there. Many readers will likely relate to such lines.

In an age of livestreamed genocide, such lines are authentic, even as we have to continuously remind ourselves that the toll on the onlooker is infinitely dwarfed by the horror of what Palestinians are experiencing in Gaza.

Sometimes the poet takes you into her world through stream-of-consciousness contemplation: “Thank you for suffering/ I’ve been through so much myself this year/Thank you for pain /my heart is a survivor … Thank you for this year, however/ it was sad, long and exhausting / and I am glad it’s nearly over” (Dear God,) These lines convey the sense of a mingling of day-to-day experiences with reflections on atrocities in Gaza.

In a similar vein, the poetry is also engaging when it explores grief. It foregrounds for the reader “this grief, this sun, the/melancholy that runs through each vein /to my heart, to all the organs in my body” (I taste Kafka …). A key focus in this poem is “depression [that] has turned me into a/ zombie.”

Some of the entries read like musings in a diary or random reflections, possibly triggered by a particular occurrence at a specific moment. The poet bemoans the fact that “There are no more trees in/Gaza, no more oranges. It is a city in ruins.” And wonders “What/ happened to the dogs”, “what happened to the ghosts?” (The very loud death of Gaza). Or sometimes it seems to be sparked by an overwhelming thought: “The streets are dead/ Gaza is dead/ Memory has been stoned to death/It’s buried under the rubble/ The children are dead/ The chickens are all dead/ Their heads buried in sand.” These lines, from Open your eyes, a genocide is taking place, convey the horror of daily and ubiquitous IDF killings in Gaza, the sense of killing fields, but may also be a reference to the spreading deadness in the millions of us observing this through the images daily beamed at us.

In several of the poems, the poet appears to strive for an equivalence. She writes that “I am writing for all/ the Palestinian poets/…/but I’m writing for Israel/ for Israeli poets too/ In war no one wins/ I want you to remember that.” On the one hand, it’s notable that, speaking from Archbishop Tutu’s South Africa, George has a heart for all. There is always space to consider the other side, the beneficiaries of repressive systems. At the same time, Palestinian poets are dying in large numbers. They have also penned powerfully evocative lines in response to genocide and, from the work I’ve seen, their work will stand as a literary testament well into the future. This kind of equivalence is not the way to honour them. By all means, pray for “both sides” (a term George uses in several poems), but shouldn’t your prayer for each be different? In this regard, I found myself wondering if George is getting into what Terry Eagleton, referring to British writers like the late Martin Amis, called a moral quagmire.

In a similar vein, and with striving for even-handedness, in So Now What,George writes:

I write a letter to God and put it inside a poem.
At night I pray for Israel too, because in war nobody wins.
I pray for soldiers on both sides.

Examining this poem, one is left with a similar uneasiness. Within the South African context, expressing concern for civilians on both sides and possibilities for the integration of perpetrators are widely accepted.

However, in a moral framework – one that opposes wanton violence against civilians – and in line with Tutu’s and Allan Boesak’s Contextual Theology, fervent implementors of repression must be actively resisted.

The question of reintegration arises only after the primacy of justice and peace has been restored. The poem’s lines may lack moral clarity, yet they may reflect the poet’s hopes for a future where peace and an end to occupation are possible.

Midway through the collection, the author inserts a two-page-long prose piece in which she states:

Perhaps I don’t really understand what’s going on from a historical viewpoint but mustn’t there be peace and isn’t murder a crime? Isn’t what is going on a crime against humanity? I am thinking of Israel and Palestine and what makes sense is having a ceasefire now not later than tomorrow. It is a form of insanity to live in the past. Better a ceasefire now than never. (Ten years from now …) [Punctuation as in text].

In this piece, George continues to make links between her loneliness and what she terms the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The passage conveys moral outrage at the killing on the scale seen in Gaza, but it also reveals gaps in her understanding. For example, she yearns for a ceasefire. However, although necessary and urgent, a ceasefire is inadequate – a just settlement, freedom for Palestinians, and compliance with international anti-Apartheid conventions are required.

Many social justice campaigners will also emphasize the need for accountability for the genocide. However, George’s voice is most strident in calling for peace, and this text does not address issues such as accountability and an end to impunity. Her main impetus, alongside the appeal for a truce, appears to be to care and a desire to connect with Palestinians. Describing herself in Ten years from now as “a poet far away from the danger of war, a poet who is trying to behave as if conflict were normal, as if their home life were not dysfunctional,” she feels a compelling urge to “reach them” [a reference to the Palestinian people] in a gesture of support.

While working on this review, I received a message in one of the WhatsApp groups I’m part of—lines from activist and poet Sunny Morgan: “Oh spare me another petition/ Rather give me ammunition / Something to blow up/ So I don’t have to see another emaciated child/ Or a mother who lost her mind.” (Untitled but tagged as “Day 679 of the Genocide”).  For many, such forceful language feels fitting, especially as the IDF’s murderous attacks on children and aid-seekers continue. This – a more uncompromising tone – is not George’s style.

George suggests that through creating this collection, she can find meaning and face the future:

Without this war, this Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I don’t know who I am, what meaning can I represent to marginalised citizens, disenfranchised inhabitants if I don’t write poetry to reach them. (Ten years from now …)

It is commendable that George, in one or two poems, references Gaza poets and pays homage to “every slain poet” (Nusayba Alareer). It is fitting that she signals, albeit in a small way, that writing such as hers on Palestine only complements the works of Palestinian poets. The Palestinian poets’ creative writings are the lodestars: in addition to their artistic incisiveness and anti-colonial content, they help shape cultural narratives about the region. They further draw from the land and its heritage and envision a free Palestine in ways that only they can.

For Refaat Alareer, she writes that “I thought of … the last dead body you saw, the/ last book you opened, the last time you/ saw your family, your wife and children”. In the poem Nusayba Alareer, dedicated to the slain poet’s wife, she invokes the names of Omar Abu Shaweesh and Yousef Dawas, almost trying to summon their spirits. “You [Alareer], every martyr, come to me/ … / come to me in a dream,” the lines implore.

Written from South Africa and from the standpoint of someone dealing with loneliness, this collection holds together and makes for an engaging read. It adds value as a work of art and in terms of adding a voice of deep concern or outrage about the mass killings in Gaza.