Art as a Hammer to Shape the World.

• Author: Stockwell, Norman

"Well, if music could only bring peace, I'd only be a musician," sang Pete Seeger in his 1967 song "Letter to Eve." In an essay in a forthcoming University Press of Kentucky re-issue of the classic book Clods of Southern Earth, folksinger Si Kahn raises a related question: "Can Poetry Change the World?"

Clods of Southern Earth, by the poet Don West, was first published in 1946 by a small and now defunct leftwing New York press called Boni and Gaer. It sold more than 14,000 copies in its first year, making it a bestseller among volumes of poetry. West, an organizer and activist, co-founded the Highlander Folk School with Myles Horton in 1932 after both had visited and studied a series of Danish folk schools in Europe.

Highlander was originally tied to labor organizing but eventually became known as a training ground for civil rights organizers in the 1950s and 1960s. Rosa Parks attended a workshop there before refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, and it was there that the song "We Shall Overcome" became a part of the movement.

"A lot of people say, oh, music can change the world," says Kahn in a recent interview, during which we chat about his work and my tattered copy of West's classic. But, he continues, "only if it's accompanied by direct action organizing. People say, 'Well, look at the civil rights movement. All those songs, didn't they make a difference?' I say, yes, of course they did. They sustained the people who made the movement. The songs were important. But songs alone, poetry alone, any of the arts alone, they don't change the world. That takes organizing and direct action."

This principle is central to how Si Kahn lives his life. In addition to a career as an award-winning touring folksinger, he has spent the past fifty years as a labor and community organizer, mostly in the South. He has authored four books (three on organizing) and co-authored a fifth on privatization with his partner and spouse, Elizabeth Minnich. More than 300 of his songs have been recorded. He has also written the script and/or songs for seven musicals.

"As people discover who they are, they change their relationship to power and therefore their relationship to themselves and therefore their relationship to other people," Kahn told The Progressive's Linda Rocawich in a 1994 interview. "Culture is a large part of what does that. It's not just marching. It's singing, telling stories, poetry, theater, preaching, posters."

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