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Proletarian Poetry - picking out the unusual, the unsaid and the unpopular
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Proletarian Poetry is a new project which aims to show all aspects of working-class life, from historical and contemporary poems of struggle, through to the everyday experiences of people enjoying life beyond the means of production.
The aim is to get a more rounded picture of the lives of working-class people.
The title is a tribute to the “proletarian poets” of the 1920s that included Langston Hughes. Hughes was part of the movement whose writing had a class consciousness to it, that didn’t hold back in its description of the plight of black working-class people during the interwar decades of the early 20th century.
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The Labour Party proposal to scrap benefits for those unable to work will be debated in Parliament next Tuesday, and threatens the most vulnerable in our society. ALAN MORRISON presents some responses in poetry