i wanted to describe to you what i mean in practical terms, by kicking out the jams, motherfuckers
what i share is already talked about in the film & is in the body of the book, perhaps in another way
my father made me a poet, a writer - he died before i picked up the pen , he was 44, i was barely 12
my mother, my commander-in-chief made me able to survive, survive as a poet, & in this slaughterhouse, that is not nothing
as i look back, it is everything
i have beaten & been beaten. I have had a walther at my head in marseilles when i was 22, i was in the wrong place at the wrong time in milan, i did something i was obliged to do for my own survival, that i will not describe in vancouver. I was attacked viciously in paris by british parachutists in the 80’s but was protected, escorted & formed a friendship with palestinians from the pflp. In amsterdam i was protected by my own fury that the persons who wished me ill saw was greater than their own. I had nothing to lose & that is a part of being able to kick out the jams, motherfuckers
when i was 19 i performed at a benefit, i do not remember the cause tho i remember the site, a town hall on the beach. There were many police in the hall & i told them i would not « read while those cunts are in the hall ». i did my reading & went outside for air & a cigarette
i was grabbed by three police, from a group that was well known at the time for their violence against aboriginal people – the star force, or star group, i do not remember their appellation exactly
i was placed in a paddy wagon that they drove at excessive speeds that caused me to be knocked unconscious 2 or 3 times on their route to the holding cells.
It is painful to tell you this
I was already bloodied & dazed by the time i arrived at the police station . i was thrown into a cell & to make it brief, i was assaulted at least half a dozen times over 4 hours when i was finally taken into the police station itself, i was surrounded by laughing & jeering police & one of these, quite well know to the aboriginal community, took me from the stand where they were weighing me, in a rugby tackle & threw me to the floor. Then with all his force he placed his knee in the middle of my back
I thought i was going to die & this was at a time when my close friend & mentor, an aborignal boxer who had gone to st peters collège, the most exclusive school in adelaide, was ‘suicided’ of a ruptured spleen in the police cells of port adelaide. i have never experienced such violence before or since, all the other incidents i have described seem ephemeral, especially tonight
I was allowed to leave, they underestimated me, thought i was a pièce of working class trash
I went home to my mother, who in the middle of great chaos in her bedroom, told me i either had to fight this war or leave it.
These were epitaphs in my mother’s mouth.
she may have used different language but that was the essence of it.
I had told her i knew my mère présence & my volatility invited violence, in part because i was very masculine but perhaps indecently féminine for the world i was living in, but this night the violence had surpassed even my worst expectations
those police charged me, charged me with criminal assault against them. it was the final obscenity
i had my 27 bruises & abrasions photographed by a doctor & i was defended by the finest barrister in that town, who is now a judge. They made us wait many hours at the court but they finally dropped all their charges if i dropped mine. from the incident to the courtcase i was picked up on average once a week, menaced & threatened physically by the police, they told me, more would follow
From my involvement in the left i knew these were policemen’s courts & i instructed my barrister to accept their offer, not because i was defeated but because they had shown me both as physical force & as an apparatus, that any such effort to fight them in court was lost in advance
I had to tranform that energy into kicking out the jams, motherfuckers
some time before this & it must appear as of no significance but it has a résonance for me because of the work i have done as a poet with many thousands of people in revealing their own voice & power
a number of well known poets hated & mocked my singular energy & decided to do a mock copy of my work – laced with all the influences my father & the movement had given me
i was never an easy person
i am not now
this effort wounded me in a way that was similar to what the police had done. for fuck’s saké, in reality, i was little more than a child obliged to become a man, so early, so early.
I have never understood why these poets would want to wound. What was it in the australian character that permitted such violence
again, i was obliged to kick out the jams motherfuckers, that tho these fellows would have their jobs, i would never ever work as anything other than as a poet, ever
i would not be a slave
& i have never worked as anything other than a poet or dramatist in france or in italy, sweden, canada, latin america, essentially all over the world
it has meant to live in poverty, sometimes grand poverty but it is the path i chose & i would not have chosen another
in 2013 i have worked for governments on very many levels in France, they have their reasons but i will not forget either the dignity & the support they have given my very délicate & sometimes brutal work. & they have done this without ever asking me to halt that energy which demands, time after time, kick out the jams, motherfuckers
i do not share this with you as an anecdote, bu merely to decribe what kind of énergies constitute, a man, a poet
christopher barnett septembre 2013
what i share is already talked about in the film & is in the body of the book, perhaps in another way
my father made me a poet, a writer - he died before i picked up the pen , he was 44, i was barely 12
my mother, my commander-in-chief made me able to survive, survive as a poet, & in this slaughterhouse, that is not nothing
as i look back, it is everything
i have beaten & been beaten. I have had a walther at my head in marseilles when i was 22, i was in the wrong place at the wrong time in milan, i did something i was obliged to do for my own survival, that i will not describe in vancouver. I was attacked viciously in paris by british parachutists in the 80’s but was protected, escorted & formed a friendship with palestinians from the pflp. In amsterdam i was protected by my own fury that the persons who wished me ill saw was greater than their own. I had nothing to lose & that is a part of being able to kick out the jams, motherfuckers
when i was 19 i performed at a benefit, i do not remember the cause tho i remember the site, a town hall on the beach. There were many police in the hall & i told them i would not « read while those cunts are in the hall ». i did my reading & went outside for air & a cigarette
i was grabbed by three police, from a group that was well known at the time for their violence against aboriginal people – the star force, or star group, i do not remember their appellation exactly
i was placed in a paddy wagon that they drove at excessive speeds that caused me to be knocked unconscious 2 or 3 times on their route to the holding cells.
It is painful to tell you this
I was already bloodied & dazed by the time i arrived at the police station . i was thrown into a cell & to make it brief, i was assaulted at least half a dozen times over 4 hours when i was finally taken into the police station itself, i was surrounded by laughing & jeering police & one of these, quite well know to the aboriginal community, took me from the stand where they were weighing me, in a rugby tackle & threw me to the floor. Then with all his force he placed his knee in the middle of my back
I thought i was going to die & this was at a time when my close friend & mentor, an aborignal boxer who had gone to st peters collège, the most exclusive school in adelaide, was ‘suicided’ of a ruptured spleen in the police cells of port adelaide. i have never experienced such violence before or since, all the other incidents i have described seem ephemeral, especially tonight
I was allowed to leave, they underestimated me, thought i was a pièce of working class trash
I went home to my mother, who in the middle of great chaos in her bedroom, told me i either had to fight this war or leave it.
These were epitaphs in my mother’s mouth.
she may have used different language but that was the essence of it.
I had told her i knew my mère présence & my volatility invited violence, in part because i was very masculine but perhaps indecently féminine for the world i was living in, but this night the violence had surpassed even my worst expectations
those police charged me, charged me with criminal assault against them. it was the final obscenity
i had my 27 bruises & abrasions photographed by a doctor & i was defended by the finest barrister in that town, who is now a judge. They made us wait many hours at the court but they finally dropped all their charges if i dropped mine. from the incident to the courtcase i was picked up on average once a week, menaced & threatened physically by the police, they told me, more would follow
From my involvement in the left i knew these were policemen’s courts & i instructed my barrister to accept their offer, not because i was defeated but because they had shown me both as physical force & as an apparatus, that any such effort to fight them in court was lost in advance
I had to tranform that energy into kicking out the jams, motherfuckers
some time before this & it must appear as of no significance but it has a résonance for me because of the work i have done as a poet with many thousands of people in revealing their own voice & power
a number of well known poets hated & mocked my singular energy & decided to do a mock copy of my work – laced with all the influences my father & the movement had given me
i was never an easy person
i am not now
this effort wounded me in a way that was similar to what the police had done. for fuck’s saké, in reality, i was little more than a child obliged to become a man, so early, so early.
I have never understood why these poets would want to wound. What was it in the australian character that permitted such violence
again, i was obliged to kick out the jams motherfuckers, that tho these fellows would have their jobs, i would never ever work as anything other than as a poet, ever
i would not be a slave
& i have never worked as anything other than a poet or dramatist in france or in italy, sweden, canada, latin america, essentially all over the world
it has meant to live in poverty, sometimes grand poverty but it is the path i chose & i would not have chosen another
in 2013 i have worked for governments on very many levels in France, they have their reasons but i will not forget either the dignity & the support they have given my very délicate & sometimes brutal work. & they have done this without ever asking me to halt that energy which demands, time after time, kick out the jams, motherfuckers
i do not share this with you as an anecdote, bu merely to decribe what kind of énergies constitute, a man, a poet
christopher barnett septembre 2013