Nick Makoha poem features on Tate: Remixed

A little late to be sharing the information since the Turner Prize is all but done, yet it's worth letting you know that Nick Makoha, author of The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, was one of four poets commissioned to do a special piece for the Turner Prize as part of the Tate: Remixed initiative. You can hear his poem Vistas online at: http://www.tate.org.uk/podcasts/tateremixed/nickmakoha.htm - but here's the text for the quick readers:

[Nick Makoha – Turner Prize]

Vista

Welcome back to the neighborhood.
From factory rooftops the ruins fade.

Adjust your set the static will clear.
We are close to the river where the evening has gathered.

In a dead-end alley, discarded cigarette carcasses glow on the pavement.
This dark night lacks direction, a broken skyline smolders in its distance.

I am one of the bystanders, heads bound in headphones.
Music heard without interruption is our common spark.

The ricocheting hums of trains through tunnels, sets the hand in motion.
Spray cans on the canvas of derelict walls will make us legend.

Paint smeared like oil on the chest finds its shape with a flick of the wrist.
Look at the origins of sentient formless life along this faceless mountain.

A cats cradle network of power lines in silhouette to the moon.
CCTV cameras crane their necks to give us an afterlife,

as laundry organizes itself in pairs on the clothesline.

A seamless beat overlaps and fades stitching me to the world.

Watch the street lamp undress the darkness that moves like a body.
The body becomes song, an aria of light casting out shadows.

If you are one of us you know this vista, these characters these signs.
History is on the tips of our tongue, yet we are not in textbooks.

The sign says, No Talking. Listen to the opus, the anthem, the tune.
Do not adjust your speaker just change your point of view


www.tate.org.uk/go/tateremixed

posted at 8:52 PM