A couple of weeks ago I bought a book of poems from Larry Jamerson, who calls himself “the people’s poet.” The book is titled Slavery the Corrupt California Justice System: Hang Him High It’s Gonna Be a Court-Room Lynching, and Jamerson made it a month ago with green construction paper and a low-grade photocopier. When I met Jamerson on Broadway Avenue, where he sells his work, he was leaning on a bike rack, fanning himself with a handful of his books, and bellowing, “It’s almost like a revolution, you know? I’m asking people to do something.”
I AM IN MY DARKEST HOUR
BUT WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT
I WILL GET THEM IN A CORNER
AND I WILL END THIS FIGHT
Jamerson wrote Slavery the Corrupt California Justice System: Hang Him High It’s Gonna Be a Court-Room Lynching while he was a “political prisoner” in California, he explained. He didn’t care to elaborate. Throughout the book he refers to himself variously as a “COVERT REVOLUTIONARY,” a “LONG DISTANT RUNNER” [sic], “A PARANOID PERSONALITY,” “AN ABSTRCT THINKER” [sic], and “JUST A CONVICTED NIGGER MAN.”
LIKE THE COWARD WHO’S THE VULTURE
WHO PREYS ON THE DEAD
WHILE I AM DOWN ON THE GROUND
THEY ARE KICKING ME IN THE HEAD
Jamerson’s poems are sorrowful (“IN A GLAD BAG, YOUR BROTHERS ARE FOUND”), daft (“YOU WILL RUN AWAY FROM TROUBLE/AND THOSE WHO ARE BAD”), vituperative (“YOUR MIND IS SICK/AND GREED CAUSES CANCER”), syntactically strained (“TRAPPED IN A GHETTO/OF PARANOID AND GREED/FOR MY BLOOD PRESSURE IS HIGH/AND THAT I DON’T NEED”), vaguely tautological (“HE IS STICKING YOU IN THE BACK/LIKE A MAGICIAN WHO KNOWS MAGIC”), and occasionally funny (“IT’S DOPE DOPE DOPE/GIVE THE PEOPLE HOPE”). There are occasions of shocking astuteness (“YOUR LAWS ARE VERY HOLLOW”) and terrifically warped prepositions (“THEY LIED ON ME”) and at least one instance of loose anapestic tetrameter (“A GHETTO OF CRACK IS A VALLEY OF DOPE”). Some of the poems urge the reader to achieve redemption and retribution by way of a kind of spiritual pacifism. Others encourage taking people out with various boxing maneuvers.
TEAR DOWN YOUR JAILS
THAT YOU CONTINUE TO FILL
IN YOUR ARENA OF DEATH
TO SURVIVE WE MUST KILL
Jamerson is large, and he is not a passive salesman. In addition to Slavery the Corrupt California Justice System: Hang Him High It’s Gonna Be a Court-Room Lynching, which Jamerson accepted $9 for (I was a dollar short), he tried to sell me a reggae CD for $5 and a book of spiritual love poems for another $10. I had to pass.
