A Poem for Onley: where the inmates showed me the true face of humanity
I wrote this poem inspired from teaching at Onley Prison last year. I also wrote this poem for Howl by Allen Ginsberg and Bedfordshire’s Alex Levene with his poem Groan.
That even behind bars their minds were by far the sharpest I’ve ever seen. And talking to these bright, inspiring individuals showed me that prison is only a cage if you allow it to be; and that my own cage called itself the British education system.
“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals. The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.” — Dostoevsky
And on entering HMP Onley, it was confirmed to me that prisons were not built for rehabilitation, but disempowerment. And these Black men… as if Black people need disempowering anymore… they reminded me of home… where I got my aptitude for history, education, etiquette and good manners.
I saw the best minds of my childhood destroyed by education, educating madness, revision, repetition dressed as intelligence, what Marxist philosopher and political theorists Gramsci called Happy Robots,
clambering their way through Beyblades and Tamagotchi, RuneScape and Club Penguin at dawn, in an epilogue of Iggy Pop, Katherine Harwood and 9/11,
the Harry Potter generation, lusting for a human connection to the street-level communities in the night-time online cyber worlds of daylight,
now broken and blistered in a deluge of 2020 vision and ergonomic offices and sunbeds, bouncing under the brevity of policy and practice of austere times,
floating through the Babylon streets of London, in the colour of money…
here begins my birdsong
our right to education, in the vice of Cons
but I’m sure you’ll agree with me
that learned people often come from poverty
education’s not always in books
nor the pages of Oxford yearbooks
and stand in rooms of Etonian faces
murderers with smiles and briefcases
but to think:
to challenge, to critique
to embolden the shy
to explore, knowledge to seek
and uncover old lies
but listening to your mind’s sound
seem to be the action least profound
but stand with your cerebral cortex
stand with Cerebro and Professor X
read as much you can,
but we all have stories and knowledge
boys, girls, women and every man
within us, stories were once oral traditions
before they were published on commission
for education, be the tool of dictators
for education, be the tool of demonstrators
protest and politics, be it in Labour’s gauntlet
and Jeremy stands on stage and flaunts it
and for those who learn, listen
from degree to those with nothing,
to those who get fat on Mr Michelin
but not Mr Eton getting high on Ritalin
whose words and thoughts puff hot air
leading populations on roads to nowhere
for even at the end of days
people that sound educated can amaze
education is not available for all
as Malala was shot
protesting her right to go to school
way way back, in those olden days Britain’s education system was built for men:
white, straight, rich, noblemen
Women? No. Black people? No.
They’d study algebra, equations and Pythagoras’ Theorem
anything by Africans, women, they didn’t wanna hear em
but education has liberated enslaved minds
as Harriet Tubman fled slavery and went back
to liberate slaves by infiltrating enemy lines
but education’s sound of drums in your brain
it’s defending your reputation and good name
it’s finding a place that you belong
to be denied one is morally wrong
in every nation, education should be a choice
and not be killed for using your voice
reading the words of the dead on the page
picturing performance on that Globe stage
it’s protest; it is freedom
it’s liberating slaves from the masters
it’s Haiti’s revolution killing the bastards
to learn is the flicker of a flame
in the belly of the youth
the smile that comes from imagination
and writing your own truth
“And the next comes an act or enormous enormance no former performer’s performed this performance” — Dr Seuss
“Good artists copy, great artists steal” — Picasso
and education is where I found my passion and zeal
Learning inspires, but it needs your commitment
and it’s not always what’s published and written
it’s changing structures, so voices can be heard
to decolonise the practices of scholars and old nerds
through the bellows of crowds and hoards
allowing the masses to partake in political discord
no poetry, no edits, no jargon
no Dutchmen about to commit arson
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” — Milan Kundera
to educate, to learn
this is where it starts
remember to light a fire in your heart
because one day, it’ll be vital
at violent family political discussion
Mom plays brass, you play percussion
or in that lecture, at the setting of the sun
cumulus melt into orange and blue begins to run
the working class who vote Tory like cattle
laugh at remoaners and lose their heads in battle
the longevity of the class war, dead dead dead
don’t fight with your fists, fight with your head
I could talk history, domestic violence and pain
proletariat oppression and the homeless without names
but we know about the corrupt and cheats
but seldom do we hear about the likes of Blair Peach
The Nazis burned books, Trump might as well
but mitochondria’s the powerhouse of the cell
what defeated Hitler wasn’t Winston’s cigar
it was education in tactics, and those tank cars
education provides your chance to be heard
no hiding behind ignorance, no measly words
learning is activism, politics and protest
not regurgitating facts on some weaselly test
from art to activism,
the Nikola’s (Rollock and Tesla)
no vacuum-packing that meeting’s agenda
Malala, Greta, Angela Davis
Stormzy, Dave and Gary Younge
activism goes past the setting of the sun
Agatha Christie, Sassoon, Wilfred Owen
Larkin, Virginia Woolf and Shashi Tharoor, Decolonise
HE., diversify the workforce
Education isn’t binary you see
learning comes in many forms,
books to discussions and watching TV
but beware: The Danger of the Single Story.
from WW1 / WW2 and the blitz air raid alarms
remember Walter Tull and Noor Inayat Khan
but if boring and fake is all that you need
relax, search the Daily Mail and give it a read
do you enjoy poetry,
like education on and on it goes
