Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement  /   360: A Revolution of Black Poets

Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology  /  From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets

Our Music Is No Accident   /  What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self

My Story My Song (CD)

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five. a decade of development (contd.)

After Hofu came Pamoja Tutashinda (Together We Will Win) in 1973, Ibura in 1976, Revolutionary Love in 1978, and Iron Flowers in 1979. Those were the books of poetry written during the decade of my Ahidiana years. I also co-wrote with my wife, Tayari kwa Salaam, two children's books, and Our Women Keep Our Skies, a collection of essays "In support of the struggle to smash sexism and develop women." Skies included three poems, two of which became among my most popular poems.

            Hofu will always be fondly remembered. It was my first poetry book that was more than just poetry. The cover was a symbolic piece created specifically for the book. Inside we had symbols as well as text. We also mixed essays with poetry. And the poems included both tender and tough pieces. The book was printed in green ink on ivory stock. It set the tone for all the other Ahidiana publications which followed.

            You could see growth happening in this book, but you could also see glaring blemishes, particularly a vehement strain of homophobia which Ahidiana would directly tackle within the next four or five years. I know that some people say that "homophobia" was part of the times, but there is no need to hide from the truth. On that account we were backward. Other poems and essays which tackle homophobia head on would follow over the next few years, and thusly demonstrate through both criticism and self-criticism that regardless of where we started from, we kept on developing.

            In 1973 we were what I would now call classic Black nationalists. Even though we thought we were being progressive, our position on the woman's question was suspect. That too would change over the next couple of years. Hofu would have been stronger artistically, if I had been more progressive politically. The feeling was there, the ideas were lagging behind.

            Hofu was then both experimental and limited, but it was an attempt to move past status quo examples of what a poetry book should be like.

            Here are two selections which demonstrate where we were at in 1973. The first piece, "Lament" is written in the feminine voice and actually had been written somewhere between 1967 and 1968; it was published in the first issue of Nkombo and, because of its subject matter, I choose to include it in Hofu. Audiences used to get really, really quiet when we did this one.

            The second "INSPIRATION" is an example of some of the most progressive thoughts cohabiting with some of the most regressive. I used both the word and the image "faggot" in a negative sense. In later years, I would continue using the poem but substituted the word "freak." Also, in performance this poem was built on a chain gang chant, "Be My Woman" which Nina Simone also used a variation of in her song "See Line Woman." The chant metamorphosed into a Curtis Mayfield-like ballad, "Love A Good Woman" and ended on a Pharoah Sanders tip. Of course the music is not on the page, but this is an example of how I wrote poems which were designed to be sung, as well as spoken, lyrics.
                                   

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            In January of 1973 Ahidiana published my third book of poetry Pamoja Tutashinda (Together We Will Win). In advertisements for Pamoja we described it as "A collection of political poems with an introductory essay by Kalamu ya Salaam which is a beginning projection of the ideology of Pan-Afrikan Nationalism." This was the most didactic of all the books. Strictly an organizing and conscious raising tool. One of the poems, "give a speech/talkin abt 'da problem' " is five typeset pages long in 9 point type. The five part poem was read at many a rally.

            Part one poetically asks the question:

            Part two responds to the question with cynicism which is itself responded to:

            Part three rhetorically asks the question: "do we want out of this" and, assuming the answer is yes, goes on to suggest:

            Part four speaks directly to how to organize:

            Of course, many, many people reject this as poetry, especially people who are not overwhelmed with social problems and actively seeking a solution. Similarly, people who are relatively comfortable with the status quo reject this as poetry. But what difference does the theme or content of a poem make in terms of whether we are dealing with poetry? It is not the content that makes a poem a poem, but rather the style and presentation.

            Pamoja had a cover by Fred O'Neal who had done the cover for Hofu and was printed in black ink on a light tan paper.

            In 1973 I made another major move. For two years I had worked as the first director of the Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Health Center. I had also been a founding member of The Black Collegian Magazine in 1970. Both the health center and the magazine were growing. I was offered the assistant directorship of the whole neighborhood health care system with the promise of becoming the director within the next year. I was offered a salary of over $25,000 per annum with benefits. I enjoyed the work of directing an outpatient health care facility located in the neighborhood where I had grown up. So, I quit.

            By then, I knew: what I wanted to do more than anything was write. I never will forget, right after signing the contract papers to work at The Collegian, I went to the city welfare department, applied for food stamps and based on the small salary I was drawing at The Collegian I was eligible. I never regretted the move.

           The Collegian offered me the opportunity to develop my writing and editing skills. Additionally, I had the opportunity to offer activists in the movement a platform to speak to Black college students across the country. I interviewed a wide variety of activists, artists, and politicians. Sometimes I had three or four interviews and/or articles in each issue. I was even able to help Hoyt Fuller when John Johnson closed down Black World and fired Hoyt. One of the early issues of Hoyt's new publication, First World, was published in the The Black Collegian as a special insert. My stay as an employee of The Black Collegian paralleled my membership in Ahidiana which had been officially founded in the summer of 1973.

            The following year I was selected as a delegate to the Sixth Pan African Congress held over the summer in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in East Africa. That trip marked the beginning of an on going pattern of traveling around the world as either an activist, a writer of socially committed literature, or a journalist. Before long, I went to the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Surinam, and numerous destinations in the Caribbean. At the same time that I was developing as a poet and performer, I was also traveling around the world meeting, being inspired by and learning from activists and artists across the globe. My outlook was expanding quickly as a result of these developments and the interaction I was having nationally and internationally.

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