Two Poems
THE GREAT LEGACY
For Nate Thornton on his 95th Birthday, January 14, 2010
Tomorrow evening I’ll join with
many others for a meeting of the
Revolutionary Poets Brigade.
The Brigade exists because you
fought in Spain, Nate Thornton.
In 1983, Alejandro Murguia and
others organized poets, writers,
translators and intellectuals into
The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade,
named after the great El Salvadorean
poet. That Brigade existed because
you fought in Spain, Nate Thornton.
A year later, I and poets Boadiba in
Oakland and Paul Laraque in New
York formed the Jacques Roumain
Cultural Brigade, named after the poet
and novelist who was the youngest
founder of a communist party in the
20th century, the Communist Party of
Haiti. Which not only existed because
you fought in Spain, Nate Thornton, but
whom you may have encountered when
Jacques visited the International Brigades
in Spain itself during the Civil War.
These resonances of the engagement
of the 20th and now into the 21st cen-
tury Brigadistas of justice and light,
who cherish the vision of a world trans-
formed into ever blossoming tomorrows,
are part of the birthday acclamations for
you, Nate Thornton, who knows more
than most that that vision will never die.
“Beaten, chained, slandered — look, it’s
reaching for your voice. Lift it! Let is
Rise in its place. The Internationale
Shall be the human race.”
IZIBONGO* FOR THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE
(*Izibongo is a Praise Song in South Africa)
Accent on International
against the globaloney
that never arrives
at the hungry mouths of the world.
Accent on the International
Brigades that are still
the deathless moment human Being
became conscious of itself.
Accent on the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade, which has always
belonged to the heart of,
by and for all lovers of liberty,
which had never stopped
bringing supplies, medicine
to front lines of struggle against
fascism in whatever form,
with an ageless energy redounding
to original hope, defying
the advocates of coalitions of alone
by bringing collectivity
into the twenty-first century,
inspiring brigadistas
everywhere—on mountainsides,
on cultural fronts—
to continue the war
humanity can never lose.
Jack Hirschman
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=63451&id=1408422580&l=6af412cb7e
URL for Facebook Album of Emanuel Hochberg’s art SCW, WWII Iwo Jima
He is reported by BING as living in Chicago at age 101 Says Emanuel “I ain’t never died” [sic! Joe Hill]
Judith/Jamie Memorial Day 2010
The main thing is to stay in touch with the younger people–and they do keep contacting me as Emanuel’s widow. Even though ALB is do9ng a good job networking other than the mailing list muist be done individually. Judith