It’s always a pleasant surprise when you can describe a successful person as kind and humble. South London poet James Massiah is one of those people. As if being a poet wasn’t enough, Massiah is a polymath — he’s also a musician, a producer, a DJ, and a modern-day philosopher. He has worked with the BBC and the Guardian, read poetry at an impressive roster of places, including the ICA, Tate Modern, and the Houses of Parliament, and in November was commissioned to write a poem for Prince Charles’ 70th birthday. On top of all that, he recently performed at the Poetry Gala 2019 in aid of Platform Presents Playwright’s Prize and has just launched his latest project — Optimism 101, where his poems will be available to watch, read and listen to on an 11-track mixtape. This weekend he will present an evening of readings, entitled All My Youngers, at Grace Wales Bonner’s exhibition at A Time for New Dreams at London’s Serpentine Gallery.
James’ poetry combines music and words to paint a picture about what it means to be young in a city as unforgivable as London. While the sort of poetry we learn in school talks about about stale, indeterminate themes that young people can’t really relate to, Massiah’s poetry dissects sex, ethics and hedonism in a full-hearted attempt to re-delegate poetry’s relevance.
“Poetry isn’t dead, poetry cannot die,” Massiah tells SLEEK. “Before you had a microphone, or a digital workstation to make music, someone was standing up in a auditorium reading those words, and before the internet you had someone who had publishing power and handling press so the question was how do we transfer this idea? And poetry is the medium”.
Massiah challenges the elitist way that we understand poetry and the themes most commonly associated with it, such as love, nature and the afterlife, as well as questioning our assumptions about who can practice poetry and why. “For a lot of people, poetry is not coming from a kid from the estate who writes about a time that they went to school and s/he got his bag robbed, for a certain demographic a poem is how many verses a poem may have.”
And while poetry is often read in auditoriums, Massiah’s, A&E nights — where he invites other poets to events with music as well as poetry — have become a weekly occurrence, often performed in pubs, cultural institutions and warehouses. In other words, he performs in the psychical areas where his target audience socialises but also in the digital ones as well.
In December, Massiah launched his project AMY/YMA in London, which he describes as “a series of poems exploring death” — a key theme across his poetry. “A lot of my work is about mortality, but this time I am talking specifically about death,” he reveals. “Life is too short and my project looks at the idea of death and bringing someone back from the afterlife. It may seem less and less so as technology moves further into the future, the fact that someone you used to speak to or hang out with is no longer in your life but they haven’t necessarily died. A friend you’ve stop talking with, an ex who dumped you, you can see them and follow them on social media and you have a personal connection with them, so in a way this might ease the anxieties about death.”
AMY/YMA also explores London’s relation to gang and knife crime. The title — AMY/YMA — is an acronym, reminiscing the way that London street gangs take their names from three letters, but also stands for “Always Missing (Messaging) You / You’re My Angel (Algorithm)”. Furthermore by using the acronym “AMY”, Massiah salutes Amy Winehouse in a clear reference to the 27-club. The project explores the concept of how we experience death in the current era through a triptych of ideas: maintaining someone’s memory who hasn’t necessary passed away through digital technology and social media, London’s socio-political problem of knife crime, and the curse of 27 years when it comes to artists.
Philosophy is central to Massiah’s poetry. “I use philosophy in my poetry. Every artist has a philosophy even if they haven’t codified it. I was looking at the frustrations that I had with poetry, my own poetry and I was trying to find consistent themes and I discovered this perspective of amoral egoism over the past few years.” Amoral egoism —the idea that we commit our self-interests on the idea of what is right or wrong — is an eye-opening prism to view Massiah’s poetry through considering the themes of sexuality and hedonism often peppered with a humour that he explores in his work. “I want people to engage with the poetry that I write, because in this age that we live in our attention span doesn’t last for too long. Our attention is often interrupted with different stimulations and that’s why poetry is the best medium to communicate with people now.”
James Massiah will present All My Youngers on Friday 8 February at London’s Serpentine Gallery.
All images by Paolina Stadler.