A 1968 poem

The Jul-Aug 1968 issue of Radical America from which I quoted historian George Rawick also contained the following poem. It gives a flavor of the attitude of activists who saw themselves as revolutionaries in 1968. I have posted much about the May-June demonstrations/uprising whatever you want to call it in France. This poem alludes to those events.

The poem by Diane DiPrima is apparently called "May, 1968".

When you seize Columbia, when you
seize Paris, take
the media, tell the people what you're doing
what you're up to and why and how you mean
to do it, how they can help, keep the news
coming, steady, you have 70 years
of media conditioning to combat, it is a wall
you must get through, somehow, to reach
the instinctive man, who is struggling like a plant
for light, for air

when you seize a town, a campus, get hold of the
power stations, the water, the transportation,
forget to negotiate, forget how
to negotiate, don't wait for De Gaulle or Kirk
to abdicate, they won't, you are not
"demonstrating" you are fighting
a war, fight to win, don't wait for Johnson or
Humphrey or Rockefeller, to agree to your terms
take what you need, "it's free
because it's yours"

So far as I know, Diane DiPrima wasn't speaking for any political group of note. But the poem gives a hint of why even many of those sympathetic to left-leaning protest movements were concerned about the lack of realism on the part of some enthusiasts. It's free because it's yours? What does that even mean? Forget how to negotiate? I won't make any comparison here to recent political controversies. But, good grief! And I'm also pretty unclear about what reaching "the instinctive man" might mean.

Still, I'm citing it here for historical value.

Tags: 1968, diane diprima