basic form that which lies in all human souls - creativity and expression.
In recent years, there has been an explosion in popularity for poetry. The muse sings to the masses and takes form in their own words and creative explorations. Yet so many of the cultured elite talk of taking the poetry to the masses, unaware that poetry exists there already. Like missionaries, they take the light of wisdom to the heathen savages, only to find the torches burning bright where their arrogance said were only shadows.
Light already blazes, burning with the fuel of poetry and prose and music and art. Words and deeds define humanity as something that is not content to be bound by the fetters of capitalism, anymore than ancient humans were content to be bound by the fetters of nature. Like them, we lash out, consciously and unconsciously we tell the world that we are more than our allotted function. We break the bounds, shatter the blinkers of censorship and of sense and sensibility.
We are dissidents and subversives by the very act of writing. By putting our thoughts and deeds into words and image and song, we lash out against the bonds that attempt to strangle our minds. We are saying that we are more than just a function, more than a dutiful consumer. We aim a blow at the ideology that says we are less than human. The ideology of cultural elitism, that trains the masses to hold themselves in contempt, to turn away from creative endeavours until an essential part of their mind is withered and atrophied.
The farm labourer toils on the land, he is not supposed to write. The car worker mans the production line; he does not compose stanzas. The secretary files her nails; she does not create images in pigments and paint. A few insipid lines about a daffodil are mundane beyond words when penned by a poet laureate. From the pen of a miner it is a most revolutionary thing - because through that daffodil he has said I am more than a digger of coal. I am a man, a human being able to comprehend the beauty of the world and to be moved by it.
We are the torchbearers, carrying what was bequeathed to us by our storytelling, cave-painting forebears, in the days when humanity still knew how to love and live and dare to dream.
Art was and ever remains the primal scream of human awakening.
October 1999
Don't You Dare Publish My Collected Works!
EVER tried calling the future collect? It's difficult, and I don't mean because the person at the other end refuses the charges. I couldn't dial because I didn't know the number, and as yet there is no Directory Enquiries for phones still to be.
So instead, I sent this plea as an email.
Not that this is a perfect solution, mind you, because I don't know who it's for. But I can guess at the address and hope that it makes its way to the right recipient. For those who don't know, the address is
[email protected].
That's all I know, other than the resonant echoes transmitted on the retro-tachyon carrier wave emitted by my words. I know from these distant echoes that it's some time in the future, as far away from the here and now as possible (thank you very much), where I am in my grave and not feeling too happy about it.
My mortality, however, is way beside the point. More important is what is happening in this parallel universe that, for me, is yet to be. I have to tell you that a terrible Crime Against Literature is about to be perpetrated. So I send my message, in the hope that I can prevent a shattering travesty.
You see, something shocking has happened in the future: I made it as a writer. My words stood the test of time to survive beyond my death. Amazing.
Now that's not the problem (other than finding as way to collect the royalties in the next world). This is: some bright spark has hit on an idea. It's a real money-spinner, or so this bloke hopes. He wants to cash in on my post-mortal success by publishing the Collected Works of Mark Cantrell, author extraordinaire of the early 21st Century.
Okay, fair enough, it's some kind of acclaim and I am gracious enough to accept the compliment even it's from some money-grubbing bastard out to rob my tomb - but it's also a total disaster. I mean this individual cannot be serious, right?
I hope you see my problem, or at least the first inklings. Then again, looking at your face I can see you're in some doubt. Hang about, you say, I'm dead so my opinion just can't hack it. Well, that's the reason for this - ultimately posthumous - message. So stop picking
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