The Desire to Build Anew

Essay by Chris L. Butler

I’ve been a writer since I was eight years old, and became a serious writer in my late 20s. In my 30s I began to be published at a higher rate, which felt like an arrival I had always dreamed of. In a way, it was not just an arrival, but also a homecoming. I knew that publishing was not what made you a writer, writing was. But that sense of validation began to fuel into a bigger desire for more and more publications.

And I got them. But what was I truly accomplishing? Sure I felt validated, and I do think the work touched the people who read it. But I had not yet reckoned with the deeper implications of the work. I wrote about Black liberation during the BLM years. I wrote about hip hop’s influence on me. I wrote about the difficulties of growing up Catholic. This was necessary for me. But I often wondered if it was necessary for others.

A close friend of mine pointed out how my poems were the types of pop culture poems he liked, but he also wanted me to do more. “What do you mean, more?” I asked. He began to explain how he felt there was a conflict of interest. “How can you be both an anti-capitalist, and writing poetry in praise of pop culture?” He asked.

Reader, I’ll be transparent. I did not want to hear this at first. But he was right. Surely, the work I was writing was reminiscent of my culture. Hip hop is and has made itself organically a part of the Black American cultural experience. There was no doubt about that. But the music is not the same resistance movement it was 51 years ago. The corporatization of hip hop music is not only real, it’s celebrated. As much as I love hip hop, it certainly ain’t socialist.

I have written less since that conversation. Not because I blame this person. They actually helped me. I do not want my pen to be complicit in the grand capitalist scheme machine. I do not want my writing to be arms for the western nation state, and it’s capitalist agenda. Of course I want to be paid equitably for my writing and wish to make money on my art. There’s a difference between sustenance and greed. There’s a difference between writing truth to power, and empowering the already powerful.

Most of the poems I’ve written in the last year do not fuel any capitalist agenda. I released a third chapbook called marchin’ forward under the empire’s blazing sun (Ghost City Press, 2024). It is a micro-chap of Kwansabas dedicated after African American sports figures who were trailblazing barrier shatterers when it came to integration and achievement in sports by Black people. This project is a FREE, pay what you can model. I wanted to give back to my people, and not have profit off them. Any financial support is donated, not owed.

I’ve also published more poetry about my experiences of immigrating from the United States to Canada as a Black person. I’ve published poetry on Palestine. These days I am using my talents as an act of resistance that models who I am outside of literature. Someone who protests American imperialism despite being an American citizen. Some who opposes Canada’s complicity in this American hyper-capitalist exceptionalist agenda.

This is not to say I will never write about pop culture in a praiseworthy way ever again. What I’m saying is, if I am someone truly for the liberation of all oppressed peoples, my writing needs to mirror and model that. I can not be complicit.