Expert: Grant Miner - 1/27/2012

Question
Hi i am currently in my final year of high school and have been asked to do a piece on protest poetry and i am allowed to choose a song. I have chosen a song by Damien Marley and Nas - 'Patience' i would like to know if this is indeed protest poetry? and a few pointers as to how it can be considered protest poetry ? I really would appreciate this as i would like all the advice and help i can get .
Kind Regards
Shaezeen

Answer
Shaezeen,
I normally don't answer homework questions and I'm not a Damien Marley expert.  Your question was so polite and well stated, however, I'll try to help.

Poetry uses words to make us see things in new ways: The world around us, the nature of the divine, the experiences of our lives. Protest poetry is concerned with raising awareness of political and social problems- inequality, poverty, ignorance.

At their best both reggae and hip hop lyrics can be seen as protest poetry.  Now, I'm not going to do your homework for you, but let's take a look at some lines from "Patience."

On the TV the picture is
Savages in villages
And the scientist still can’t explain the pyramids, huh
Evangelists making a living on the videos of ribs of the little kids
Stereotyping the image of the images


Do these lines make you see commercials for ministries that use images of hungry African children differently?  Does it point out that, while ostensibly helping to feed the needy, these images reinforce stereotypes that people have about Africa?  Find some other lines in this song that address a specific issue.  There are many.  Let me leave you with an example of protest poetry from the African American poet Langston Hughes.  He wrote during the Harlem Rennaisance (look it up if you're not familiar with it).  This poem addressed the oppression of Black Americans at the time and it's called "A Dream Deferred."

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?