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With Covid-19 ravaging populations and the World trying to come to terms with lockdown reality, it seems an appropriate moment to reactivate this Platform-7 project from 2013 exploring the trauma that follows on from a sudden shocking change in circumstance.
 War of Words on Shepherds Bush GreenGuerilla poetry, as I call it, consists of approaching people going about their weekend and inviting them to listen to poetry. Performing in this way, without the framework and safety of a stage, can be exposing and intimidating for a poet. It seems almost as unnerving for the people with who you hope to share your words. But that’s the beauty of it - if you get past the self-consciousness, it is also a uniquely rewarding way of engaging people... |  War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...However, Remembrance Sunday 2013 was to prove more challenging than the other times I’d performed in this way but more enlightening too. The object wasn’t just to spout poetry at people but also to find out about their experiences of war in the hope that I could translate what they told me into another poem... |  War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...Shepherds Bush Green wasn’t as busy as I expected that day. I spotted two men sitting on a bench. They were Ethiopians who graciously listened to the poem but I could tell that they didn’t understand every word I said. Afterwards they told me that although they hadn’t “seen war with their naked eyes”, when they think of what war means to them, they think of 1928 and the Italian massacre of thousands of Ethiopian children. They said Italians aren’t an Ethiopian’s favourite people... |
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 War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...I heard the sound of marching drums on the other side of the green. It was a phalanx of cadets and soldiers escorted by several policemen. The first person I approach is a smiley, 6 foot 6 inch policeman. He is Polish as it happens but very happy to hear my poem. He is amazed that many people he has encountered don’t know what the poppy is for. He says “arms and legs don’t grow back” and inspires the beginning of a poem that I shall share at another time... |  War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...I stand and watch as the young cadets indulge in rough and tumble, bundling each other as if they are at someone’s birthday and not just on the streets contemplating what it means to go to war. They are so young looking, not much older than my flatmate’s 14 year old son and share his rambunctious energy. I wonder if they have truly thought about what they have signed up for. It’s difficult to get any of their parents or friends to listen to the poetry... |  War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...A grizzled old man eyes up my daffodil yellow jazz shoes. He is looking at them so much that I decide I have to go and talk to him. He tells me that he is 75, Italian and has lived in Shepherds Bush since before the trio of towers that oversee the green went up in the 1970s. This is his baby, he says. He feels very comfortable in this part of the world. The 2 Ethiopian men I met earlier walk past us as I deliver the poem to him. I wonder what they would make of the fact that he is Italian... |
 War of Words on Shepherds Bush Green...I loiter around the green for a little while longer but don’t encounter any more people that look likely to want to hear the poetry. I decide to wander over to the Westfield Shopping Centre and I’m immediately drawn to the advert on the huge billboard that greets shoppers as they head into the mall. It’s promoting the latest release in the Call of Duty series of video games – Ghosts. It strikes me that they are what I have been chasing all day. Ghosts of a war of words. |
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Words, Images & Copyright: Dzifa Benson
11th November 2013
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