Friday, February 26, 2010

Mayor of Kabul

What madness is this
the wish the wash
cosmetic democracy
a vote a sham
dover real
blood bones coffins
soldiers love poppies
Taliban stopped poppy fields
Americans say let it flow let it flow
Afghans hooked
families babies
eat poppies for food
we crown warlords
we warlord
crusader style
european touch
obama Hamlet in the night
to send more to send less
where is the bliss
kill rebuild kill rebuild
new strategy
so bright
more blood more bones
for what
mayor of kabul
any al queda in afghanistan
eight years no al queda
interesting.
--Marvin X
11/2/09

Love And War

poems

by Marvin X

preface byLorenzo Thomas

1995


Review

by Mohja Kahf


Have spent the last few days (when not mourning with friends and family the passing of my family friend and mentor in Muslim feminism and Islamic work, Sharifa AlKhateeb, (may she dwell in Rahma), immersed in the work of Marvin X and amazed at his brilliance. This poet has been prolific since his first book of poems, Fly to Allah, (1969), right up to his most recent Love and War Poems (1995) and Land of My Daughters, 2005, not to mention his plays, which were produced (without royalties) in Black community theatres from the 1960s to the present, and essay collections such as In the Crazy House Called America, 2002, and Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, 2005.Marvin X was a prime shaper of the Black Arts Movement (1964-1970s) which is, among other things, the birthplace of modern Muslim American literature, and it begins with him. Well, Malik Shabazz and him. But while the Autobiography of Malcolm X is a touchstone of Muslim American culture, Marvin X and other Muslims in BAM were the emergence of a cultural expression of Black Power and Muslim thought inspired by Malcolm, who was, of course, ignited by the teachings and writings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And that, taken all together, is what I see as the starting point of Muslim American literature. Then there are others, immigrant Muslims and white American Muslims and so forth, that follow.There are also antecedents, such as the letters of Africans enslaved in America. Maybe there is writing by Muslims in the Spanish and Portuguese era or earlier, but that requires archival research of a sort I am not going to be able to do. My interest is contemporary literature, and by literature I am more interested in poetry and fiction than memoir and non-fiction, although that is a flexible thing.I argue that it is time to call Muslim American literature a field, even though many of these writings can be and have been classified in other ways—studied under African American literature or to take the writings of immigrant Muslims, studied under South Asian ethnic literature or Arab American literature.With respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just now hearing about him—I read Malcolm when I was 12, I read Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and others from the BAM in college and graduate school—why is attention not given to his work in the same places I encountered these other authors? Declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his incredibly rich body of work.He deserves to be WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the world at large. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true to the word!Love and War Poems is wrenching and powerful, combining a powerful critique of America ("America downsizes like a cripple whore/won't retire/too greedy to sleep/too fat to rest") but also a critique of deadbeat dads and drug addicts (not sparing himself) and men who hate. "For the Men" is so Quranic poem it gave me chills with verses such as:for the men who honor wivesand the men who abuse themfor the men who winand the men who sinfor the men who love Godand the men who hatefor the men who are brothersand the men who are beasts"O Men, listen to the wise," the poet pleads:
there is no escapefor the men of this worldor the men of the next
He is sexist as all get out, in the way that is common for men of his generation and his radicalism, but he is refreshingly aware of that and working on it. It's just that the work isn't done and if that offends you to see a man in process and still using the 'b' word, look out. Speaking of the easily offended, he warns in his introduction that "life is often profane and obscene, such as the present condition of African American people." If you want pure and holy, he says, read the Quran and the Bible, because Marvin is talking about "the low down dirty truth." For all that, the poetry of Marvin X is like prayer, beauty-full of reverence and honor for Truth. "It is. it is. it is."A poem to his daughter Muhammida is a sweet mix of parental love and pride and fatherly freak-out at her sexuality and independence, ending humbly with:peace Muit's on youyo worldsister-girl
Other people don't get off so easy, including a certain "black joint chief of staff ass nigguh (kill 200,000 Muslims in Iraq)" in the sharply aimed poem "Free Me from My Freedom." (Mmm hmm, the 'n' word is all over the place in Marvin too.) Nature poem, wedding poem, depression poem, wake-up call poems, it's all here. Haiti, Rwanda, the Million Man March, Betsy Ross's maid, OJ, Rabin, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and other topics make it into this prophetically voiced collection of dissent poetry, so Islamic and so African American in its language and its themes, a book that will stand in its beauty long after the people mentioned in it pass. READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!--Mohja Kahf Associate Professor / Dept. of English, Middle East & Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville

Sunday, February 21, 2010

If I Were A Muslim in Good Standing





May 19, 1925
February 21, 1965










Brother Marvin,
I'm reading your poem today at the Malcolm X & Islam Today event this afternoon at the Schomburg Library in Harlem. I think it hits the spot on what we want to discuss at the forum.
We can rest assure that Brother Malcolm is proud of you today... carrying on his legacy of revolutionary spirituality for resistance and struggle.
--Sam Anderson




If I Were A Muslim In Good Standing

















If I Were A Muslim In Good Standing





I would be like Prophet Muhammad





Elijah Muhammad









Malcolm X
I would fight oppression everywhere
I would liberate slaves
educate the poor
free the women
expel infidels from Muslim lands
fight quisling Muslim governments
not sleep til Jerusalem liberated
Palestine a free nation
send Zionists back to Europe
or into Mediterranean
if it took one hundred or two hundred years
like Saladin
I would slay them without remorse
Recite the Fatihah on pyramid of heads
expel heathen Christian armies from Iraq
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia
defend Iran's right to have Nukes
Why should Zionists have Nukes but not Iran
If Zionists are sane, so is Iran
If Zionists are sane, so North Korea
I would fight white supremacy in all forms
black face, Arab face, Chinese face
If I were a Muslim in good standing
I would liberate Mecca of slaves and selling pork
free the kingdom of Saudi Arabia of wicked primitive theology
Infecting virus of ignorance and reaction in Taliban Al Queda
and Sunni insurgents in Iraq
who have no intention to allow Shia rule except with obstruction
sabotage

I would salute Hamas and Hezbollah
for confronting Shaitan in all his masks
Salute Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt confronting Pharaoh Mubarak

Chief uncle abdullah (tom) of the Muslim world
I would stop domestic violence, honor killings, cutting of clitoris
put women in the front of the masjed to pray with dignity
not out in the alley
come in the back door like a jim crow negro
put the veil on men
show equality at all times
make earth paradise for those who truly believe
who fight oppression everywhere
who will not sleep til world is free
--Marvin X