The Role Of Poetry In Our Time
Por: Dwayne Morgan
I was eighteen years old when I found my voice and realized that I had the ability to bring stories to life with my pen. Prior to that moment, I had never written, never delved into the creative corners of my mind. I had no reason to consider myself as a writer or artist, but little did I know the change that was ahead of me.
As a Canadian-born teenager of Jamaican parents, I soon found a weight and responsibility on my shoulders. With each poem that I shared, people were seeing themselves reflected in my words. I soon realized that the stories that were coming to my mind were not my own but were connected to something bigger.
When you find yourself surrounded by a dominant culture, each poem creates a unique opportunity for you to carve out space, for you to say that you are here, and demand to be noticed. For my parents, leaving everything they had known behind, to start a new life in a foreign country was based on faith and the hope that their children would have better opportunities than the ones presented to them. For myself, and those of us who were the first generation born outside of the Caribbean, we found ourselves in a unique place, where we were too foreign to be Jamaican, and our dark skin and strange foods didn’t fit into the image of what a Canadian was. I was part of a generation searching for our identity and dying to be seen and acknowledged.
Each poem that I wrote, gave people permission to be, and filled me with a sense of purpose. It allowed me to realize that I was more than I had ever imagined, more than what being pushed to the margins made me feel. It was this realization that my voice mattered, and that I was telling stories that others struggled to articulate, that informed much of my work as a writer, performer, curator, and mentor.
Over thirty years, I have had the privilege to see how poetry and the art of storytelling can move people, improve lives, and create change that goes far beyond what we imagined when we sat to craft our work. Like many artists, the work of poets is often trivialized, when it is often what gives a society meaning.
Fast forward, and the world finds itself in a precarious position. Technology that was supposed to bring us together, has torn us apart in many respects, creating division, and robbing us of the opportunity to learn from those who may see the world through a different lens. We now have more access to people and advertisements, and less access to connection and the truth. We spend more time looking down at devices, than forward to where our lives are being directed. Our children are being robbed of the joy of discovering one’s imagination.
For our young people, social media has proven to be a threat to literacy, attention spans, human connection, and self-realization. Language has become a series of abbreviations, to be decoded like hieroglyphics. Everything is expected to happen in an instant, so we suffer with anxiety without the skill of patience. We struggle to connect to one another in real time, in person, because we are so used to hiding behind a screen. We struggle to love and accept ourselves, in a world of constant comparison, with influencers and advertisements promoting pills, classes, and surgeries for the insecurities that they market to us. It is now harder than ever to stand out as an individual, when there is an acceptable mould that we are supposed to try to fit into.
Concentration of ownership is putting the world in crisis, as people find themselves pawns to corporate greed. The concentration of media ownership has led to the suppression of ideas, identities, and voices. What we understand as news is curated to tell the story of whomever has the power to dictate the storyline. Counternarratives, and the lived experiences of the people are often ignored or delegitimized to ensure the corporate narrative.
As we move into this new world of AI, many more will find themselves swallowed by a programmed dominant culture, and it is here that poetry will offer humanity a lifeline. It will be the responsibility of the poets to remind the world of the power of stories to create connection between human beings. It will be our duty to remind people of their humanity, that they are more than just titles and job descriptions, but divine beings with purposes to fulfill. It will be the poets who remind people of their importance, the importance of speech, love, touch, expression.
When I was growing up, I struggled to see myself in the world. More people are likely to experience that feeling in the years to come. Poetry saved me and gave birth to a version of me that I had never imagined, and it will be poetry that saves the world from itself, restoring hope and dignity to people around the world.
Dwayne Morgan is a 2023 appointee of the Order of Ontario, and a two-time Canadian National Poetry Slam Champion. He began his career as a spoken word artist in 1993. In 1994, he founded Up From The Roots entertainment, to promote the positive artistic contributions of African Canadian and urban influenced artists.
Morgan made the 2022 Shifter Magazine list of outstanding Black men in Canada, while also winning the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Celebration of Cultural Life award. Morgan was a 2016 finalist for the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and in 2013, he was inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame. Morgan has received both the African Canadian Achievement Award, and the Harry Jerome Award for Excellence of the Arts.
