Fight Evil With Poetry: A conversation with Micah Bournes

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“Fight Evil With Poetry” is not just a clever catchphrase. This anthology is rooted in the conviction that creative expressions of love are merely high road, but the most effective form of resistance against injustice.” 

 Micah Bourne, Editor of “Fight Evil With Poetry”

I sat down to talk with recording artist and poet Micah Bournes in downtown Long Beach at one of those cool hipster coffee shops. This was not the first time I met him. Several years ago he performed at a conference of creatives in the Nashville area. His story then was as compelling as his spoken-word performances. This young, African-American man from Long Beach, California attended a very conservative all-white Bible school. Micah is an activist, but artist and poets don’t fight by the same rules of the general population. Power often is wielded to silence foes. Artists give everyone a voice in the vacuum to power in subversive yet humble ways. Like Micah says, injustice is best resisted with love.

This anthology of 30 poems Micah co-edited with Chris Cambell is full of crafted words from people of different stripes–whether that be gender, LGBT, Christian conservative, or progressive thinker. How does one fight evil with poetry? Micah and his fellow poets seemed to be asking us all to listen. Listen. By compiling varied voices, we are brought out of our corners of comfort into the light of people who may not look like us or think like we do. Perhaps, the biggest evil in society is how we are growing apart. Art can bring people together when it is at its best. Artists like Micah Bournes who serve to better our world genuinely live up to this ideal.

One reason I entered into the blogging world is to have a conversation. Blogging at its best is a conversation, not a place for dogmatic tomes. Ideas are being formed like we do at the pub or coffeehouse. So I invite you into snippets of our hour conversation about Micah Bournes, and his new publish anthology, “Fight Evil With Poetry.” All I ask is that you listen. Then, let’s talk! That’s what good conversations are made of, right?

You’re an artist who tells your own stories, your own experiences now It seems like with this thing you’re doing now–Fight Evil With Poetry–you want to give voices to other people. And I gather, to people who you might not agree with or agree with each other in this book.

I’m trying to “un-become” being the leader. Ella Baker’s philosophy is, “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.” She criticized the Civil Rights Movement and other movements at the time because they were too centralized around an individual–usually a man. And, if that’s the case then all you have to do is discredit or kill that individual then the movement loses all kinds of steam. That’s what I love about the Black Lives Matters Movement. Most people know what it is and they have no clue who started it. BLM was started by queer black women. But, they were not pushing themselves to be known as the leaders.

With myself, I just found that there’s a lot of people who want to stand up use their platform and that’s kind of their excuse for chasing fame. It’s like, if I get more followers, if I get a bigger platform, then I can use that influence, use that money, and use that clout for good. But, realistically that’s not what happens. Most people: they get a little juice, and they start drinking their own Kool-Aid.

What about Black Lives Matters? My white Evangelical friends don’t get the kneeling at the National Anthem. They ask, “Why do it that way?”

They just don’t listen.

Micah has a friend who was a white Christian who asked, “What’s wrong with saying ‘all lives matter’?” Micah went on to say, “If you are still asking that question after the last four, five, six years here in America then you are not listening to anybody that’s not white.” Is his friend’s question an honest question? Micah doesn’t think so. “It’s a lazy question because right now you are still asking that. Bro! That’s 101.”

What’s a good way for people to listen?

I think if you actually value something you have to seek out your own education and not passively pass over your minority friend’s questions…take education into your own hands and read a book and do some research.

Micah went on to describe the rest of the conversation with his friend by putting it into the context of Nazi Germany. If one is not a Jew and not being rounded up, how would a Jew feel a response to the words “Jewish lives matter” with “well, all lives matter.” Micah asked, “Do you think that friend would feel that he cared at all?”

It doesn’t matter that saying ‘all lives matter” is true, it is incredibly rude and insensitive and not the right thing to say.

Why some are offended by cultural appropriation?

Again, it’s about listening. If it was not your intent to offend, then get defensive if somebody says they’re offended. Have a conversation.” It’s not so much about what you do, but why and your motivation. There are people who have given me compliments that came out as insults. But then there are people who said offensive things, but I knew–I could tell in their heart–they were trying to understand or say something good.

For example…this older white gentlemen comes up to me after I did spoken word poetry and said one of the strangest, but I wasn’t offended in the slightest. Because I could tell heart. He said, “When you first walked up there I just saw a tiny little negro man, but as you kept speaking you grew taller and taller and taller until I realized you were the same height as me.” This dude was being honest about his prejudice. “When I saw you, I thought you were less than me, but when I sat and listened I thought, ‘We are equal’ we are the same height.”

Being given dignity seems to be something I experience with my black friends. Does this make sense, that being able to hold onto your human dignity is an issue?

Give a voice to the voiceless? Nobody is voiceless, people just aren’t listening. Everybody has something to say, but you got your foot on their throat. You don’t need people speaking up for them, you need to take your foot off their throat. For instance, women have never been silent, just silenced. You make room for them.

We wanted to make sure that we made room for the voices of women that were being ignored. With the anthology, there are 30 poets. At first, we said, let’s have a balance of gender…because everything else has been imbalanced in favor of men for so long, so there’s 20 women poets and 10 guys (are in the anthology).

Where did the idea “Fight Evil With Poetry” come from?

In January of 2018, Micah Bournes released an album titled, “A Time Like This”–12 rap songs and 4 spoken word poems. In promotion of the album, Micah pulled lyrics from songs and created a t-shirt. While wearing the t-shirt with “Fight Evil With Poetry,” he was traveling on a plane, and a conversation began. The woman sitting next to him asked if he wrote poetry and then proceeded to tell her life story.

The whole life story thing has happened three times, and then the comments that are beyond ‘cool shirt’ are happening almost every time I wear that shirt out. And, what I realized was that these interactions were happening with people from all different backgrounds, faiths, ages, all that sort of stuff. But, in everyone’s mind, it seems like the identity of a poet was a safe person.

Are we inviting people into a conversation with poetry? Don’t you think we need an invitation to the conversation? Isn’t that what a poet is doing: conversing with him/herself, the world, with God?

So much of what I have done has not been on purpose. A time like this was an intentional thing, but so much of it was just observing. It was just saying what I see. But, when you say it through poetry, often people will have less defenses. If I sit here and argue with you about the existence of white privilege, or American history, or…we might go in circles for hours. If I lay out an argument, you can agree or disagree…its actually impossible to agree or disagree with a story. That’s not how stories work.

It seems in my experience art is used for something, not a way to tell stories. Why are we afraid as Christians to tell the stories of the Bible?

I, growing up thought this was a good thing. The art doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the gospel. And, it’s essentially saying whether its hip-hop or any other art form that I actually don’t have any care in the beauty of this art. I’m just using it as a tool. And, it is simply the bait on the hook, and the hook is the religion I want to convert you to. And, I think that creates bad art. Art is not just a means to an end. It’s an end in and of itself. Not in the sense that we worship art but in the sense that when we are gifted with something–talent creativity–it brings honor to God when we do those things.

Social justice with Evangelical Christians used to be historically married to piety. In 2018 it seems Christianity is inward, talking about “chains being broken” as inward and never connected to other people. I don’t understand that disconnect.

That disconnect is not just white, but white American, but that disconnect does not exist in the black church in America and never has. There’s this American concept of individual responsibility which is why people don’t like the idea of white privilege. It’s like, I earned this and I worked hard, and you can work hard too so don’t blame it on race. So in the Christian, religious context even though there is this preaching of grace, everything is about the individual’s responsibility to respond to the call of God…there’s an emphasis on saving individual souls and going to heaven when you die. This kind of collective repentance is foreign.

There’s a new schism happening in the American church. Some of us who have identified as Evangelical are beginning to see the connection between say the environment and our collective responsibility towards others.

In the Old Testament the prophets who were faithful to God would repent on behalf of Israel, and they would include themselves…it was like, we as a nation have walked away from God. There was this understanding that even if you as an individual didn’t do a particular thing to be a part of a people group that has oppressed…it was let us together change this societal ill.

If you’re poor if you’re suffering it’s because you didn’t work hard enough. Don’t blame other things. And, so its like white people are basically saying “its not my fault.” And, why should I feel bad about things that happened before I was even around? Well, we are poor because of things that happened before we were around. I wish you were right. I wish none of the past affected us, but it does.

There’s a book called Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew up in German and studied in New York before Hitler and everything. Bonhoeffer basically said his time spent in the American black church…(that) The black church was the only place I heard the gospel preached here in this country. That’s what gave him the framework to start the resistance that he was a part of when he went back to Nazi Germany.

Is one of the things it seems you trying to do with this book is say “we.”

“The beautiful thing about the book is that I’m a person of Christian faith, but I have been in the world of creatives for a long time, and most of my relationships and friendships are with people who are not Christians. And, I have heard so much gospel truth coming from there that I know needs to be heard. And, the beautiful thing is I did not filter any of the poets. I invited them to share whatever they felt made sense for this context for this idea of Fight Evil with poetry.

There’s so many poets who are so unselfish in what they say. One of my expectations which was wrong was that the black poets would write about black issues and the women would write about women, and the LGBT poets about LGBT issues…and, that didn’t happen. There was a lot of crossover. A lot of the men were writing about women’s issues. 

It takes time to listen. It takes work. The word “compassion” means to share another’s pain. Are we willing to show compassion when the ugliness of our world oppresses us? We might get laughed at or booed off the stage. “I love your shirt, I wish it worked.” said one woman in response to Micah’s t-shirt. Will we boo at this book of poems? Will we shy away from forgiving enemies? Will Christians in America forgo our lust for prominence and power and help the oppressed and live out a gospel that is beyond saying sinner’s prayer? Micah has given us an opportunity to listen with “Fight Evil With Poetry.” Let’s listen…speaking of listening. Micah mentioned some books and I want to pass them on to you as well. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance and The Cross and the Lynching Tree.