Poet Laurette Larry Jaffe speaks to Rose DesRochers

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Rose DesRochers

Poet Laureate Larry Jaffe has been using his art to promote human rights. Jaffe says, “Every day I read about various human rights violations and in my heart I know we can make a better world.” Jaffe has a remarkable talent for using the power of poetry to bring understanding to the world.

His poetry has appeared in numerous publications as well as the on the internet. Jaffe’s poem OWNED is the official poem on human slave trafficking.

I was fortunate to be able to ask Larry a few questions about his poetic career and to find out from him what it is like to be a Poet Laurette for Youth for Human Rights.

Rose DesRochers: Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you born?

Larry Jaffe: I was born in the Bronx, right near Yankee Stadium. For some reason, I was always a little bit different (okay sometimes a lot different). I seem to feel things in many different way and different levels. My level of care for humanity seems to be extraordinarily high. I like to help people. I perceive the pain and suffering on this planet yet know there is hope. I hear with my fingers the rhythms of the universe and try to put them down in words.

When did you start writing poetry?

I have been writing since I was 9 years old

How many poems have you written in your years of being a poet?

Impossible to calculate — thousands and thousands.

Do you write any other gene, besides poetry?

Poetry to me is not a genre of writing. Poetry is poetry and is the art. Writers write about things. Poets create things — images, emotions, attitudes.

That said, I am in the process of writing a memoir of sorts called Jewish Soul Food.

Good answer! What poets have influenced you the most?

Langston Hughes, Leonard Cohen, Joseph Brodsky, Vladimir Mayakovs, Ilya Kaminsky, Robert Pinsky, and Czeslaw Milosz

How did you go about getting your first poems published?

I knew the editor.. I am very much into self-publishing. In today’s world in order to make a living as a poet you have to publish yourself and sell your works at readings. Small publishing houses do not pay much. And why should I pay a middle man I like the direct contact with readers. That is the best.

What is it like being a Poet Laurette?

I am Poet Laureate for Youth for Human Rights, a global effort to make people aware of their human rights. For me it is an honor. I feel that a poet’s job is to enlighten, create beauty, show truth and give hope. This position gives me the opportunity to do all of that.

How does your audience respond to your poetry?

You should probably ask them. They seem to respond well to the simplicity of words yet they carry this grand vision of mine..

Now you are also the co-founder of Poets for Human Rights, an international coalition of poets and human rights advocates. Can you tell us the purpose behind Poets for Human Rights?

The purpose of PHR like my purpose as a poet, is to enlighten folks about their human rights. If someone knows their rights they have more power even if those rights are being taken away. But you can never completely take away a person’s rights as a spiritual being — you cannot arrest a soul. So our job is to educate, enlighten and create poetic beauty whenever we can. We also have an annual contest. poetsforhumanrights.org

Tell us about this recent 30 week campaign that you’ve launched?

Poet Larry Jaffe has been using his art to promote human rights his entire career and has been “virtual” with his poetry for the past 18 years using the internet as a virtual memorial for peace and not war. Only recently has he moved into “Twitterdom” to gain a broader following. Today, Jaffe is speaking for peace by tweeting each of the 30 articles of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 140 characters or less. When his poetry foray into Twitter began this past July, Jaffe was pleased to find Human Rights as one of the top-trending topics the day he launched his campaign.

Despite having read his work in such distinguished locations such as the Japanese American Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Museum of Literature in Prague, Jaffe says Twitter has a much faster ability to travel the globe one twoem at a time. “Tell the world about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and make everyone you know aware of them, says Larry. “Get these rights taught to our children so they know their birthright.”

What are your future goals?

I would like to help create a planet of sanity and comradery. I think people are tired of the B.S. that politicians offer and are turning to artists and other alternatives. Poetry inject spirit into our culture, something we really really need. I would like to read at the UN and read in every country on the planet. I would like to see poetry raise up from the ashes as an art form and poets to truly be the doctors of the soul as they should be. Poetry has been so degraded like many other art forms on this planet, but I think poetry has suffered the most. It is has been reduced to academic blather or therapeutic mental masturbation. I think it is time for poets to dig in and show their meddle.

Did you know that there are currently some 27 million slaves on this planet? Some 300,000 child soldiers some as old as 7? There are almost twice as many slaves on earth now than at the height of slave traffic in the 1800’s!

I would like to rid this universe of degradation that is initiated by those who think that drugs are the solution. The psychotropic drugs, the street drugs all dehumanize humanity. People must be made aware of the purpose of those who drug us and drug our children. It is my job to alert them and make them aware. This is not a Brave New World. This is a Cowardly New World, where medicos and psychs push drugs on the populace to tame them. It is time for this to end.

Care to share one of your poems with us?

Sure.

Here are a couple and you can choose what you like….

HUMAN RIGHTS BEGINS

Where, after all, do Universal Rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. – Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Human rights begins
with your heart
miraculously transforming
hate to love.

It begins
with your mind
inexplicably converting
fear to courage.

Human rights begins
with your fingers
astonishingly turning
violence into caresses.

It begins
with your family
evolving
ignorance into intelligence

It begins
in your neighborhood
ultimately challenging
prejudice with tolerance.

Human rights begins
wherever you are

OWNED

I am owned
by silence
possessed by others
slavery denied
in the highest places

I am owned
by intolerance
drugs prevent protest
women & children sold
to the highest bidder
on hidden street corners
of underground slave markets

I am owned
by indifference
tears my only salvation
children shackled to machinery
in third-world factories
owned by first-world corporations.

I am owned
by finance
body and soul
women chained to beds
in nomadic brothels

I am owned
by ignorance
my rights abused
invisible chains
bind my soul
you say slavery is dead
I am living proof it lives

I am owned
& only wish
to be free!

I am owned
& will be free!

© 2009 lgjaffe.com

What advice would you give to aspiring poets?

My best advice is to write, go to readings, read your work, listen to others, even host a reading, read a lot and write and write and write and write.

Where can readers go to read your poetry?

larryjaffe.com
facebook.com/larryjaffe
twitter.com/larryjaffe

What parting words do you have for us?

We live in a deeply troubling era. There is much war and violence that surrounds us. Opiates and other drugs are dispensed like candy. We must turn and face the enemy and it is not ourselves. We are a beautiful race, this human one and only a few make it horrid for the rest. We must root out the suppressive that make life miserable for all. In the face of adversity, we must flourish and prosper! Time to really kick ass!

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