Robert Graves: The Poets and the Gleemen

Gleemen's Dance, 9th Century. From Cleopatra, Cotton Ms. (British Museum)

Picking up Graves' The White Goddess, I came across this intriguing passage on poetry in midiaeval Wales.  If you substitute "print poets" for "court poets" and "spoken word artists" for "gleemen", you might find a not-so-far-off description of the state of poetry today!  Perhaps I'll call spoken word artists "gleemen" from now on...and bring gold torques, honey cakes and beefbones (especially beefbones) to the next poetry slam.  The parallels are fascinating...

In a sixth-century Welsh poem, the Gogodin, it is remarked that “the poets of the world assess the men of valour”; and the combatants—whom they often parted by a sudden intervention—would afterwards accept their version of the fight, if worth commemorating in a poem, with reverence as well as pleasure. The gleeman, on the other hand, was a joculator, or entertainer, not a priest: a mere client of the military oligarchs and without the poet’s arduous professional training. He would often make a variety turn of his performance, with mime and tumbling.

If the gleeman’s flattery of his patrons were handsome enough and his song sweetly enough attuned to their mead-sodden minds, they would load him with gold torques and honey cakes; if not, they would pelt him with beef bones.

… it is a paradox that in midiaeval Wales the admired court poet had become a client of the prince to whom he addressed formal begging odes and forgotten the Theme almost entirely; while the despised and unendowed minstral who seemed to be a mere gleeman showed the greater poetic integrity, even though his verse was not so highly polished.

NB:  ... by "the Theme", Graves means “the single poetic theme of Life and Death… the question of what survives of the beloved.” Here he quotes from the Welsh poet Alun Lewis...

Lillian Allen at the LCP AGM

I happened to come into the panel discussion on Dub poetry and Spoken Word at the LCP AGM just as Lillian Allen started to speak. I've seen her perform a number of times before, and always found her to be really neat, a great performer with a lot of depth, warmth, & humour. I love listening to her Caribbean lilt, and after a few hours would probably start adopting her intonations (I doubt if she would pick up on mine if she listened to me for any length of time -- nor would I wish that on her!).

Here, only slightly expanded upon for coherency, are my notes:.

-- poets (dub) fighting to open up sacred spaces, lost roots

-- alienation from the language of dominent culture, it's supression of vernacular

-- private spaces of communication: you feel it in your body, in who you are, as you express... leads to flow, transformation.

-- perfection (ism?) in language is an excuse for abuse

-- why tenses? Isn't the present tense all we really need?

-- varieties of English (so-called high, low) used for social demarcation, to create heirarchies (convenient way to shut out the underprivileged, stigmatize users of so-called slang & varient forms...) : Lillian's response:

"The Queen's language is her own,
& she should speak it from her throne."

(audience laughs)

Dub:

-- forming collectives, rehearsal space
-- going back to language, words; & words back to roots in music.
-- not done to make money
-- poet as speaker for community: everyman cultural leader, inspiration for others
-- asks people to consider what is important in their lives
-- turning information into knowlege (inner truth, conviction)
-- political agenda: underprivilged rise up, throw aside fetters, claim what is theirs, birthright
-- akin to liberation theology. Dub poetry is liberation theology.

-- we need these voices, they are not superior or inferior, but a necessary part of the spectrum
-- do we prefer them cut out, ignored, to go back underground?

Lillian of course read/recited a couple of her poems... poems I would imagine would be half alive on the page, but which performed were as fully, truly alive. Following her was a young fellow who goes by the name of Spin. He did a remarkable recitation (more hip-hop influenced of course than Lillian), so did a younger protege of about 15. Spin emphasised poetry as a means by which the underprileged can not only to tell others what's wrong, but share what has empowered them to overcome their difficulties (including heavy stuff like substance abuse, doing time in prison, etc.), become an example for others. He promotes dub poetry in the Ontario school system.

If you want a good capsule definition of Dub Poetry, check this link. Interesting... Lillian is listed there as one of the notable practitioners of the art...

YET ANOTHER HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR SPOKEN WORD SLAMS

The Arabs of pre-Islamic times possessed a primitive script, but they tended to distrust writing as a medium which imprisoned the free spirit of their poetry. The spoken word was all-powerful; in comparison with this living splendour, the written word seemed to them dessicated, like a pressed flower.

-- Charles de Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man, pp. 204-5