This book by Kae Tempest is comprised of a single 71-page poem, also released as an album of spoken-word-with-music,* by the same title.
It is utterly brilliant.
They takes us on a journey through the nexus of what it means to be an interpersonally-connected and socially-aware human amid the complexities, injustices, small joys and small hardships, big hopes and big losses, distractions, and whatnot, of the 21st-century world. There is a lot of incisive (punchy not preachy) political commentary and calling out of individualistic apathy. The bulk of the poem is a portrait of a street, in London, at 4.18am, in which place at which time exactly seven people, strangers to each other, are awake, for different reasons. Each of these seven, after a two-or-three page descriptive introduction, is treated to four-to-six pages of verse voicing their internal struggles. These vary massively in tone - from despairing at the gentrification of one's lifelong neighbourhood forcing one soon to move to bafflement at one's own incapacity to not fall into the same holes in a low-pay high-sesh lifestyle - but the thread connecting them (other than all being awake at 4.18am on this London street) is these individuals' disconnection from others. The poem climaxes with a surprise thunderstorm striking, and all seven rush into the street in wonder and excitement, see each other, and laugh, dance, hug, in the torrential rain. Kae ends the poem with an uproarious cry of pleas to the reader, to all humans, to wake up and love more - to value the stories and struggles of others, even those we don't know, to fight for justice against the powers that neglect it - because what is striving for justice if not effectively loving people who may be affected by injustice? Its language and imagery and juxtapositions reveal a great many of the intricate deceptions of politicised global consumer capitalism, culture under neoliberalism, and our socioeconomic relationship with our planet. Its portraits paint familiar pictures of kinds of people who live and struggle in London, as in the UK, as in most places, in this day and age - a world where community is being made redundant - and remind us that empathy is the key. The world is a complicatedly broken and brokenly complicated place, and any effort to make it less so requires that we, ourselves, first start genuinely respecting the lives, needs, narratives, struggles, contradictions, and basic human legitimacy, of others around us. Before the flood comes.
This is a poem that, in anguish and rage and indefatigable faith in human goodness, tells us we can do better and we know it so we fucking should do better. It avoids being bleak and cynical, facing real problems through recognisable characters, and (also in the non-character-bits) walks the line such that the darkness is never being held too far from our knowledge of the possibility of light. It is an immensely challenging and ultimately heartening poem - a radical fireburst call-to-arms.** And it is fantastically fun on the ears.
Yeh. Read this poem.***
* Worth listening to - the poem, heard in their voice and accompanied by the music, takes its fullest power. I can attest to this having seen them live in what was probably the largest and sweatiest venue hosting a spoken word performance in Birmingham that night. (Spoken word performances tend not to be in large sweaty venues.)
** Okay, not arms, the opposite of arms, love, but call-to-arms is the phrase. Just don't get the idea that this is supposed to kickstart some violent revolution, it's about genuine human connection being the root of both community and meaningful social justice. Perhaps a nonviolent revolution then? God knows we need one atm. Peace and love, dude.
*** In one sitting, out loud, if possible.
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