Monsters + MMoCA raises oppressed voices through poetry (by Akhilesh Peddi)

Poets gather to recognize oppression, endangerment of Free Speech

Shilpa Gupta’s MMOCA exhibit, “I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt.” September 26, 2024. Akhilesh Peddi

Five poets gathered at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) on Thursday evening. The group consisted of two University of Wisconsin professors, Erika Meitner and Timothy Yu.

Other poets included Natasha Oladokun, a queer Black poet and essayist from Virginia; Nicholas Gulig, a Thai-American poet from Wisconsin; and Steven Espada Dawson, a poet from Los Angeles.

They were gathered as part of the Monsters + MMOCA poetry reading to share their experience after visiting New York artist Shilpa Gupta’s current MMOCA exhibit, “I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt.”

The exhibition focuses on state-sanctioned censorship and violence against free speech. The exhibition consists of visual and auditory pieces including quotes from imprisoned and oppressed writers and journalists engraved onto books made from gun metal, an MMoCA employee said.

Visitors are also encouraged to pick up stars in the center of the exhibit and take them home.

Monsters of Poetry, a Madison based-organization started in 2009 to promote poetry, organized the event in partnership with MMoCA, Monsters of Poetry founding member Adam Fell said.

“We are pretty much a rag-tag make-shift mischievous crew,” Fell said.

The event spanned around an hour and a half, provided an opportunity for poets to share the emotions on what it is like to live in a world where state violence possess a strong threat, as Oladokun points out in her introduction.

“This gives me a chance to think how it feels like to live here in the United States with genocide occurring around the world and with people facing death every day,” Oladokun said.

Other poets commented on similar issues expressing their fury and pain against discrimination, censorship, genocide and various state-sanctioned violence and acts of hate.

Meitner read from his poetry during the evening.

“Some nights I dream I am swimming the Hudson.

Some nights I dream of the express train;

the conductor calls towns into the ether.

The towns are stamped with cheerful aphorisms.

The towns are cast in gunmetal.”

Showering the audience with notes of bliss and the sudden deadening of verse with gunmetal, Meitner’s poem made the audience picture the contrast between a beautiful suburb and a war-torn city and how in a big world that innovation and change makes feel small, we are yet to change our ways and still fill it with much too pain.

Oladokun’s poetry spoke for oppressed voices.

“I came here because I pledge allegiance

to no flag and I am holding

holding my final breath which

did you not know

is also yours”

Oladokun’s last few words shattered the room with a murmur of appreciation for her delicate use of words and profoundness of her meaning. Her poem makes you think of how silly our hate and our judgment of people are when our lives are so finite. When the world is so busy planning the death of others, it does not realise it is walking towards its own.

The event was noted to be a success, bringing together a large audience and many poetry lovers. Shilpa’s exhibition is open to the public until April 28 and Monsters of Poetry continues to prepare for its next event.

Article published on https://badgerherald.com