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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three. I choose to be a writer                  

Well, I tell you for myself, I make a conscious attempt, I think I can truthfully say that in music I make or I have tried to make a conscious attempt to change what I've found, in music. In other words, I've tried to say, 'Well, this I feel, could be better, in my opinion, so I will try to do this to make it better.' This is what I feel that we feel in any situation that we find in our lives, when there's something we think could be better, we must make an effort to try and make it better. So it's the same socially, musically, politically, and in any department of our lives. --John William Coltrane                                                            

            I was slow to commit to writing. When I graduated from high school in 1964, photography was my first love and music my deepest passion.

            After graduation I went on an eleven year odyssey in and out of higher education which culminated in a business administration Associate Arts degree from Delgado Junior college in 1975.

            I have never liked college. I perceived college as an extension of high school from the pedagogical standpoint. Nevertheless, there is no denying the importance of many of the experiences I had in colleges.

            First, I was one of eleven "American Negro's" (eight of whom were first year students and two of whom were sophomores) at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota -- the mythic site of one of Jesse James' last and most disastrous attempt at bank robbery. Carleton was a great and expensive learning experience that I quickly rejected.

            Even though I left at the end of the second trimester, while there I had written a lot of poetry and a second novel which revolved around the experiences of a desperate group of young Blacks at a predominately White college.

            During this period I also developed a relationship with Esim Bozoklar, a young student from Turkey. She inspired me to write a series of numbered poems called, as best I can recall, "mavi gok" which was Turkish for "blue sky".

            Overall, at that time, my poetic influences were: Hughes for content and e.e.cummings in visual presentation (the breaking of works into letters and the explosion of one word erupting from another word or interrupting the word flow). Although I've lost most of my work from this era, here are two poems which exemplify both my state of mind and some of the cummings influence.

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              In addition to musicians such as drummer Art Blakey and Ravi Shankar, at Carleton I was able to see and meet a variety of influential people such as socialist Norman Thomas and members of the budding White left organization SDS. Also important for me was the opportunity to meet and talk with students from Africa and other foreign places. I became a radio programmer with my own jazz show on the college station. Carleton also exposed me to an enormous amount of foreign cinema. Although I never had any major desire to work in film, since Carleton I have been an avid cinema buff.

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