Poets, protest, and Pepsi-Cola
VICTORIA KINGHAM
What did punk mean? And what does it still mean? Is it a term that transcends time, or was it a movement peculiar to its 1970s moment? ‘One of its main tenets is a rejection of mainstream, corporate mass culture and its values’ states the Wiki entry, which is relatively up to date and has been heavily honed since 2007 by various interested (mostly American) parties.
Barschak and William
Dean Stalham’s Stretched Lips punk poetry evening at 74 Norman Road was a kind of retrospective, a comparatively staid event. Not much in the way of moshing, spitting, or safety pins, but a lot of fun all the same. And a wildly enthusiastic audience for what was in fact an excellent evening of declamatory poetry.
Declamatory is the operative word here. A poem to me is something that I look at carefully on a page then read it about ten times and then begin to understand – or not–what the poet is talking about. The mere fact of its appearance and shape in print often features in the cumulative meaning of a text. Think about the small, bare works of William Carlos Williams, and the whimsical patterns of E E Cummings, for example, whose poems are concerned with the physical as well as the philosophical.
Aaron Barschak (remember him, the guy who gatecrashed prince William’s 21st birthday party in Bin Laden fancy dress?) was instructive. “There’s two kinds of poetry, and poems that are to be performed are entirely different from the ones that are written down” he remarked. Though he is moderately well-known as a performer, none of his own poems has ever been published, probably due to his semi-notoriety, anti-establishment thoroughness and general over-the-top bonkersness. “His style of stunt-comedy often borders on the deeply offensive” wrote Alison Roberts in the Evening Standard in 2012, and of course, that’s the point. Given that he appeared noisily in a fuschia evening dress over a fat suit, with an ill-concealed and ridiculous pair of false titties bursting out of the top, an old-fashioned policeman’s helmet with a sandcastle Union Jack sticking out of the dome, a St George flag on the back of a satin jacket, and waving a cut-out placard of Prince Andrew, this reputation was conclusively reinforced. So you could call him an avant-garde comedy performer rather than a poet, but the poetry is meaningful enough. A section of his long performance poem is reproduced on this page, appropriately for this homelessness special edition.
Barschak’s long work is also about wealth distribution and, in part, about business: while he takes a stand against homelessness, he mentions that he makes a living as a landlord. Sad, but true – Mammon usually wins out and it’s a courageous person who takes a lifelong stand against that particular son of Lucifer. A poor one too. Or a rich one: ‘Why not phone up Robin Hood/And ask him for some wealth distribution?’ sang The Clash in 1978. ‘The new groups are not concerned/With what there is to be learned/They got Burton suits, huh, you think it’s funny/Turning rebellion into money’.
I’m grateful to one of the evening’s early performers, Tim Barlow, for that particular insight into what has changed and plus c’est la même chose in 2025. Spearheaded by Barlow’s tellingly laconic poem (also reprinted here) which explores–the death of punk? Or its clever, cynical, commercial institutionalisation?–most of the evening’s poems expressed protest of one kind or another. They addressed current issues: class, race, sex, gender, religion, political aggression. One divine fresh-faced and rosy punk poet, Syd, stood out, carefully-lacquered blond/green mohawk and ear flesh tunnels proudly prominent. His poetic performance was about the challenges and individualism of Queerness, but also about suicidal depression – he seemed quite cheerful about all of it, however.
Essentially, it’s refreshing to find social protest alive and well and living in St. Leonards: a post-punk ‘rejection of mainstream, corporate mass culture’ however ruefully, or necessarily, diluted by the vicissitudes of earning a living.
Excerpt from Aaron Barschak, The I-Crowd
(Thoughts from Trafalgar Square 03/05/2023)
What good is acreage of National Trust
If the people’s bed clothes are sheets of rain
Or blanket icy gusts? This is insane
In 21st century Britain
Housing for all is a must!
Starting that would bolster flagging national trust
Oh William so many of your Dad’s subjects are lacking
Shelter
They need backing
In the roofless surreal estate welter
With house prices rising helter-skelter
Where an English person’s home should be their castle
But where homelessness is accepted as part and parcel
Of a thriving property market
The housing secretary ignoring
Targets
With voters snoring in flagstone supported sleeping bags
In a land whose Capital houses capital of funny moneybags
But where some sleep in rags
Under cardboard and packing material
Striving In conditions neither palatial nor imperial
More unshielded from the cold
Than packages in a depot owned leasehold
By the Royal Mail.
Yet there are no freehold
Sales of parcels of land owned
By another Royal Male
To fund the building of homes
For those crapitalism forces to beg and roam.
Funny Money
TIM BARLOW
John Cooper Clarke
Of ‘punk poet laureate’ renown
is advertising fragrances by Molton Brown.
He’s not the first to sell us down
The river; Roger Daltrey of The Who
Promoted American Express to you.
David Bowie made a tv ad for Pepsi.
We thought John Lydon
Could be relied on
but he came back from the dead
In ads, telling you to spread
Country Life on your butter knife.
And now Oasis provide tracks
to advertise The Halifax.
And so the rebels fall
Surrendering, in thrall
To the greenbacked bribes of marketing teams
Killing the dreams
Of those of us who thought our heroes pure,
Above the lure of filthy lucre.
And yet, and yet… who are we to talk?
The highest bidders buy our work
We trade our time and talent for wages
To buy whatever tat will engage us.
We silence the rebellious spirit of youth
By stuffing cash into its mouth.
We compromise with commerce
We abandon our defiant stance
And like mountain streams, meander
along paths of least resistance.
We brand our bodies with logos like cattle.
We become humanoid billboards,
surrendering the battle.
We are advertising and consuming hordes.
Rebellion was to no avail:
our very selves are up for sale.
John Cooper Clarke is having a lark
plugging Molton Brown.
Who are we to put him down?
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great writing Victoria – was a great night – long may they continue dx