Marvin X Parable of Poets and Kings

Poets write to keep from killing, homicide or suicide, two sides of the coin of death. Most often, poets kill when they can't express themselves with words. If and when poets are political, when they refuse to write poems for the king and queen and defy court patronage, and persist in critiquing contradictions of the royal court, the king and queen has no use for them and they may be forced to flee their homeland or suffer prison or death even since no kingdoms based on lies can allow poets to speak the truth.

We have written about the symbiotic relationship between poets and politicians, although this symbiosis can become dysfunctional when the poet transcends the narrative of the royal regime, especially those king/queen for life regimes that forbid opposition. See Parable of the Parrot, Parable of Trinkets and Gadgets, Parable of Black Man and Block Man by Marvin X.

The poet who speaks only truth cannot be tolerated by any regime based on lies. Wicked regimes only love poets and artists who perform as pharaoh's magicians, sycophants willing to promote the royal narrative for kibbles and bits, crumbs from Pharaoh's table. The recalcitrant poets who are determined to be obstinate and incorrigible must be silenced or disposed permanently.

The wicked regimes become relentless in their effort to silence any narrative that contradicts the official one. Poet, writers, journalists, singers, actors, must not transcend the royal regime's propaganda machine. To do so is often called treason or sedition at the very least, which means saying anything not in agreement with the royal order.

Do not speak of the king in the negative, even if and when he is negative. When the poet cannot submit to the royal order, the symbiotic relationship is no longer tenable and must be severed for the good of the kingdom. The poet becomes a banned person. No one must speak with him, no one must read his books. He is a danger to society and to himself since he refuses to submit to the rules and regulations, policies and precepts of the royal order. He is labeled agitator, opposition, revolutionary, thus a danger to the security of the state, even his books are dangerous and fictional characters must be rounded up and incarcerated for crimes against the state. I am thinking of the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo. In Native Son, the lawyer said, "Every glance of the eye is a threat; his very presence is a crime against the state." He was not speaking of an artist but the oppressed man, Bigger Thomas. But in the manner of Ngugi, was not only his characters but Richard Wright himself was a danger to society and died in mysterious circumstances in Paris?

And them came James Baldwin deposing Richard Wright of the Black literary heavyweight championship. And Baldwin did great until The Fire Next Time when he got the bright idea to interview the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Pharaoh said enough! Shut the fuck up, we don't care if you gay or straight, shut the fuck up. Baldwin wouldn't shut up. I was blessed to interview him in his apartment across from Central Park, New York, a cold December, 1968: he had no heat in his apartment. Among other things, he said to me, "How dare they talk about the Prince of Peace while they bomb the hell out of  Vietnam! Your condition proves they don't believe in Jesus, Prince of Peace. Just look at your condition. It's a miracle for a black father to raise a son in these conditions and I applaud the fathers who are able to do so. Nothing else happened here except us, nothing else happened. It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"

--Marvin X
11/7/18
\