Spark Catchers: Lemn Sissay and Amanda Gorman

There are poets writing history and writing poems drawn from history. Eavan Boland once said that a poem will revivify an event. She cautioned against revivifying trauma, because it will make that event re-traumatize. Boland is a political poet. In Ireland, where she was born, writing about the land is a political act.  Paul Valery, a French poet, said that a poem is like a small engine that recreates meaning each time it is read.  Therefore, a poem that celebrates the strength, resilience, ingenuity and power of a survivor and changemaker will inspire us.  Here are two examples: 

Lemn Sissay's poem "Spark Catchers" was commissioned to become part of the 2012 Olympic Park in London, UK. The poem is engraved at the site, and it marks a historic event in 1888, a strike by women who worked at the Bryant and May Match Factory.  Sparks in match factory posed a threat to life and work, and this poem describes the spark-catcher who helped the women survive the exploitation and danger in the factory and whose story now inspires solidarity and the power of women to create change. His poem has also been the basis of a music composition by Hannah Kendall.   "Spark Catchers" translates the words into notes and textures of music and it continues to share the light to concert audiences across the world. Listen to it here: https://youtu.be/CbpauBt9Tag
This piece of music has been performed by several orchestras world-wide, and it continues to share the light.   

Spark Catchers by Lemn Sissay

Tide twists on the Thames and lifts the Lea to the brim of Bow
Where shoals of sirens work by way of the waves.
At the fire factory the fortress of flames

In tidal shifts East London Lampades made
Millions of matches that lit candles for the well-to-do
And the ne’er-do-well to do alike. Strike.

The greatest threat to their lives was
The sulferuous spite filled spit of diablo
The molten madness of a spark

They became spark catchers and on the word “strike”
a parched arched woman would dive
With hand outstretched to catch the light.

And Land like a crouching tiger with fist high
Holding the malevolent flare tight
‘til it became an ash dot in the palm. Strike.

The women applauded the magnificent grace
The skill it took, the pirouette in mid air
The precision, perfection and the peace.

Beneath stars by the bending bridge of Bow
In the silver sheen of a phosphorous moon
They practised Spark Catching.

“The fist the earth the spark it’s core
The fist the body the spark it’s heart”
The Matchmakers march. Strike.

Lampades The Torch bearers
The Catchers of light.
Sparks fly Matchmakers strike.

In another poem by Lemn Sessay, "Making a Difference," again he demonstrates how effective poetry is to create social change.  A composer, Hannah Kendall, read this poem and used it as the basis for a musical composition for orchestra.  

In the rhythms of Lemn Sissay, an accomplished poet of London, I heard a similar beat and internal rhyme here in the United States by the poet Amanda Gorman. She too is a spark-catcher -- one who by speaking out calls for change, creates change.  This poem, "The Hill We Climb" was performed by Gorman at the inauguration of President Joe Biden.  The poem is also in Amanda Gorman's book of the same title.   

Compare the two, and be inspired to write a poem about a historic event.