I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the

Hear, O seekers of rhythm and word, the fierce declaration of Russell Simmons: “I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.” In these lines burns the vision of a prophet of culture, one who believes that stripped of adornment, stripped of sound, stripped of beat, the naked word still holds power enough to shake the world. He calls not for distraction, but for essence—for poetry to stand bare, fierce, and unashamed.

The origin of this vision lies deep in the tradition of the spoken word. Long before instruments, long before stages, there was the human voice. Around firelight, elders spoke in rhythm and chant. In the marketplaces of Greece, philosophers spoke their truths aloud. In the deserts, prophets thundered their visions. Words alone carried nations, uplifted people, and shook empires. Simmons, rising from the culture of hip-hop, knows that the beat is powerful—but he dreams of what would happen if the beat fell silent and only the word remained. Would it not pierce deeper? Would it not force the listener to face the raw fire of truth?

Consider the tradition of the griots of West Africa. They carried the history of their people not with drums or lutes, but with memory and the spoken word. They spoke lineage, victories, tragedies, and wisdom, weaving them into chants that preserved identity across centuries. Their words, naked and strong, built communities and nations. Simmons’s vision is kin to this: children, stripped of distraction, running with verse in their mouths, making the air tremble with their voices alone.

This vision also recalls the cry of the beat poets of the mid-twentieth century. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and their kin sought to free poetry from the page and hurl it into the streets, into jazz clubs, into the ears of a restless generation. Their words were raw, sometimes wild, sometimes vulgar, but always alive. They sought, as Simmons does, to make words themselves into movement, to prove that poetry does not need music to be song, for the human voice is itself an instrument.

But Simmons goes further: he dreams of children embracing this flame. He envisions a generation in which the young, instead of being consumers of noise, become makers of words—crafting, reciting, declaiming. He speaks of “baldhead kids” not as scorn but as image: youth stripped to essence, unadorned, carrying only the voice. In this dream, the youth themselves become prophets, their words rising above beats, their tongues shaping futures. It is not only art he seeks to promote, but empowerment: to put power back into the mouths of the people.

The lesson here is mighty: we must never forget the power of the spoken word. It is the seed of revolution, the heartbeat of culture, the foundation of identity. When all else is taken away—wealth, instruments, even parchment—the human voice remains. And within it lies the power to heal, to unite, to call forth justice. Simmons reminds us that the word alone can command a room, awaken a mind, stir a soul.

In practice, let us act: speak your words aloud. Do not wait for music or accompaniment. Gather with others and share verses. Let children learn to recite, to improvise, to chant their truths. Encourage the spoken word in schools, in communities, in streets. Read poetry not only silently but aloud, with rhythm and breath. For it is in the air, in the voice, in the ears of others that poetry becomes living fire.

Thus the teaching endures: poetry must not be hidden behind the veil of sound, nor chained to the page alone. It must rise, spoken, bare, unadorned. Simmons calls us to trust the ancient power of the word itself, to believe that when all else is stripped away, words alone can change the world. And if we answer this call, we may yet see a generation of children running not with weapons, not with fear, but with verses blazing from their tongues.