Luigi Spano has expressed sadness that since he wrote the article entitled ‘Poet for Change’, which was published in the Estcourt News back in 2011, there has been no change…
“Nothing has happened!” Luigi says that lots of musicians have tried to change people’s hearts, but no one hears a word. Even Michael Jackson sang the ’Earth Song’, ’Man in the Mirror’ and ‘Make the Change’, and still no change.
Try to tell Luigi that poverty and hunger are complicated problems requiring sophisticated solutions, and he will look at you incredulously. Try to tell him that the massive discrepancies in wealth between rich and poor in South Africa are the consequence of centuries of socioeconomic imbalances, which will need some time to undo, and he will shake his head very slightly, but firmly.
‘’It’s enough; I can’t even absorb this madness,’’ he says with some impatience. ‘’I’m angry at a situation in which a gravedigger can earn less than R1000 a month while a CEO or government official earns over a million. And then they have to pay the same for food and other basics,’’ says Luigi. It is no doubt difficult for a man who has overcome so much in his own life to understand complacency and resignation in so much of today’s social and economic discourse.
Having endured the tormented childhood of an undiagnosed dyslexic schoolboy, luigi has gone on through sheer force of will and personal determination to become a poet and songwriter, teaching himself to engage with words and gain mastery over them. And if he can achieve such a feat, what is stopping others? ‘’Our leaders should be playing a proactive role to ensure the end of hunger, poverty and discrimination,” he says.
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‘’Instead, we have these obscene differences in wealth, so many children running around barefoot, and poverty is getting worse.’’
Despite his significant progress, Luigi still consciously identifies with the millions of illiterate people in South Africa. ‘’It’s hard being illiterate because people dismiss you very quickly when they find out you can’t read. But inside my mind, it’s all about intelligence, imagination and creativity.’’
The son of illiterate parents, Luigi’s dyslexia went undiagnosed until he was well into his adulthood. He started writing poems at the age of 46 and when he struggled with the words, as still sometimes happens, he relied on his daughters to help transcribe the ideas that flow relentlessly through his head.
‘’As a small child, I had lyrics coming into my head that kept playing like stuck records. Now I get up and write them all down so as not to forget them. I’ve got pens lying around everywhere!’’
His poems reflect his concerns with the social ills he perceives in abundance as he goes about his daily life as a loom technician in Estcourt, a father and grandfather. One of his recent poems about a brutal rape, he says, moved a woman to stop him in the street. ‘’I write what’s true,’’ he says unapologetically. ‘’Often people say my poems are sad, but that’s good because they disturb and touch people. Sometimes they are a release from hurt for people who have gone through similar situations.” Luigi says his mission is primarily to challenge and to heal. ‘’The world is in great need of healing. If we don’t do anything now, who knows where it will end? I want to change the face of the world,‘’ he says candidly.
How? you might wonder. Luigi’s idea is a global campaign that will see all the world’s governments agreeing to halt price increases. ‘’If we get everyone in the world to keep the price of goods at the same level, I think we will restore some balance and sanity, and importantly, make it possible for ordinary people in the world to catch up, as it were’’. In the spirit of the people’s poet, he says, ‘’I want to be on the side of the majority; I’ve always felt for other people.’’
Luigi’s need to reach out to the countless faceless people in society is reflected in his recent poem:
Poverty is a face without a name. A man sits quietly on the curb, wondering what he has done wrong, trying to disguise himself from strangers walking by. Lost in the world without an identity, he scrounges around, trying to feed and live another day, never hearing his name being called. Night falls; he lays down his tired body. Under the cold open sky, he hopes he will die.
Recently, Luigi said, ‘’God’s softly spoken words echo through into the poet’s heart.” Suddenly, the ink flows through the poet’s soul onto a clean sheet of paper, and then the divine mercy takes over and begins to write down a perfect story unknown to the poet’s mind until the very end.
“If I may die today. I want the inspiring words that I have been given by God written down on a clean sheet of paper to speak volumes of inspiration to the ones left behind in a world so mangled in sin! So that the words written can live and be alive on earth, speaking the truth that no one wants to listen to.
“The scale between the rich and poor is beyond comparable; it’s like when the truth is hidden behind the lies! My precious mother has always told me, ‘’Son, you are wasting your time fighting for justice; unfortunately, justice has been crucified a very long time ago,” concludes Luigi.
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