John Beecher

Welcome

News

Music

The Singles - Season 6

The Singles - Season 5

The Singles - Season 4

The Singles - Season 3

The Singles - Season 2

The Singles - Season 1

Higher Mission

Enter the Flavor Hut

Video

Art

Tone Deaf

Andy Ewen

Skinny Gaviar

Kristie Lee

Dept. of Graphics

Words

John Beecher

Tone Deaf [words]

Andy Ewen [words]

Aya Peard

Live

Live Downloads

Live Video

Gallery

for the gearheads

About Us

The City Council

The Characters

Contact

John Beecher was a poet, activist, and teacher. Pete Seeger called him "the greatest protest poet America ever produced." John was at the forefront of the labor rights movement of the early 1900s and was decades ahead of his time as a civil right activist. He also happened to be the Commissioner's grandfather. Because he was blacklisted in the 1950s, John's incredibly powerful poetry has largely been forgotten...but not by us....
more poetry by John Beecher:
Beaufort Tides
Georgia Scene, 1964
Freedom
And Ever the Pyres of the Dead Burn Thick
Old Man John
Whose America?
The Abbot
Birmingham Blues
Homage to a Subversive
Their Blood Cries Out
Altogether Singing
Bestride the Narrow World


The lifted lamp is guttering,
near spent its fuel.
Double-barred the golden door
which, when it opens,
opens on a chain.
Where throngs poured through,
police interrogate each refugee:
admitting but the few
who pass security
and kiss the Book.

Would Juarez get a visa
from the State Department?
Would the FBI clear Dvorak?
    Deport the New World Symphony!
Marti, the Cuban foe of Imperialism?
Lorca, the anti-fascist poet?
These men were all subversive
as in earlier times
Tom Payne, Pulaski, Lafayette.
The authorities would surely
bar such Undesirables.

all material ©1998-2016 Kicksville: download & distribute freely, but give credit where credit is due....
info@kicksville.com