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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
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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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four.
BLKARTSOUTH
(contd.)
The late sixties and early seventies were a time when Black
people literally were reading and reciting poetry on street
corners, on buses, in churches and temples, at rallies and
demonstrations, in playgrounds and in gymnasiums. This was a
time when poetry mattered and was vital, had meaning for
everyone whether young or old, male or female, college educated
or a high school drop out. In that context, to be a community
respected poet was nothing short of being a messenger from the
spirit world, a juju man/woman. To appreciate our theoretical
approach to poetry, you must understand the context.
My
first year in the workshop was the key to my decision to become
a professional writer. I was developing a voice as a writer and
I had found a writing community -- actually, I had helped create
a writing community. From the beginning I served as coeditor of
Nkombo and later when the workshop officially became BLKARTSOUTH,
I became the director.
While
I do not separate developing a voice from the development of the
writing community, the truth is that other than Tom Dent, I had
done more writing than anyone else in the workshop and it was
quickly apparent. At first I was recycling stories and poems I
had written while in the army as well as writing new material,
but then I hit on writing a play entirely in verse. "BLK
LOVE SONG #1" became one of my most successful plays on a
national and international level, even though it never played as
much as did some of the other more conventional pieces I wrote
such as "The Picket" and "Mama" (which was
our biggest hit).
While
some of the other plays were more popular and had been performed
throughout the south, they had not been published. In 1974,
"BLK LOVE SONG" was selected for inclusion in the
monumental work Black Theater USA, 45 Plays By Black
Americans, 1847 - 1974 edited by James V. Hatch with Black
playwright Ted Shine serving as a consultant.
The
immediacy of the workshop is what made it possible for me to
write as much as I did and as quickly as I did. As soon as a
script was drafted we would get on the stage and walk through
it, reading it aloud. All of our workshops were open, so often
times there were visitors and an audience checking out how we
developed the work. Although I continue to write plays, I am not
even one third as productive as I was during the FST/BLKARTSOUTH
years.
The
success of the poetry performances and the drama inadvertently
led to neglecting the publishing outside of Nkombo. For us, the
written word was of secondary importance and we never really
concentrated on developing it the way we did performance. After
all, we were performing before hundreds of people monthly. We
did not publish monthly, and when we did publish it seldom
reached as many people as our performances did. Of course, we
were making the mistake of focusing only on the present and not
thinking about the future, not thinking about documenting what
we were doing as a priority. Additionally, when we did publish
we added a twist to our literary magazine which intentionally
added to obscuring the individual personalities of the writers
in favor of presenting the flavor of the group.
We
viewed Nkombo as the textual voice of our collective. In my
introduction "Food For Thought" I wrote:
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Blk
writers words are of only 3 forms
1.
protest
2.
revolutionary
3.
blklife
-protest
writing is basically explaining to somebody how human
you are, enough said
-
revolutionary writing is up against the wall
-blklife
writing is what we are |
Most of
what follows is directly out of our workshops where we write w/h
only the preconceived notion of being honest to our senses,
there is no pretension to it being high art
One of
my poems in that first publication, "BLKARTS is the magic
of ju-ju," delineated the direction our words would take:
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blkarts
poets are crazy weird dudes
whose
vocabulary is in the streets&in the gutters& off
the walls
&
round de corner & down the halls & who's ideas
is like the same
ones
that hang on the edges of buildings where ever gathering
throngs
of
blkfolk have spoken about their lives, churches,
barstools & jail
cells,
jail cells, empty parking lots&the balconies of old
tired cineramas |
Except
for the very first issue -- an issue which was called Echoes
From the Gumbo -- we did not use author's names on the poems
included in Nkombo except in the table of contents. Flipping
through the book, there was only the poems, the text itself to
refer to rather than a name above or beneath the text.
In
performance, we not only read our own poems we also developed a
collective style and recited each other's poetry, sometimes solo
but also as a choral group.
Before
long we had moved to the idea of developing poetry shows with
musical accompaniment, but only as much music as we could make
ourselves. I of course played percussion, but also some
recorder, penny whistle and bamboo flute, plus thumb piano and
occasionally balaphone.
Intuitively
we had moved to the jazz band as a metaphor and model of our
poetry work. The poetry shows were flexible in that they could
be altered at a moment's notice to accommodate a given reality
we faced. Additionally, we could reduce or increase the number
of poems and the number of poets without violating the overall
structure. As far as we were concerned, just as most people
didn't know the names of all the members in a big band, they
didn't need to know our names individually. The band was more
important than the soloist, in fact, it was the band that
provided the platform for the soloists to blow and develop --
even the most novice poet could be accommodated and given room
to recite at least one poem.
Here
is one of the most frequently performed pieces which was
orchestrated for the whole group. Even though I wrote the poem,
I was not "the featured voice." Different people had
different parts in solo or duo, while all of us acted as chorus
and musicians. I remember one particular performance we did at
the University of New Orleans. There was a jazz band on before
us and some of the musicians hung around for our set. The
drummer and vibraphone player joined us once we got started on
"Black Bones" which was how we referred to the poem
whose formal title was "Names, Places, Us." This poem
was published in the first issue of Nkombo.
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NAMES,
PLACES, US
Who
did they kill?
What
were the names of those Blacks they killed then?
No
One knows no
one knows
no
names no places just us to witness
they
are dead, killed only because their skins were Black,
we
are here only because their skins were black
Who
did they kill? What, where, who? Who did they kill,
murder?
What?
They
killed you! Who? Who dead drift now who they killed
Are
you hip to the middle passage? how many of our people
rest now at sea
their
bones & flesh chewed & eaten by fish, abandoned
to die in a turbulent sea
whipped
by the frenzied hands of white masters into their places
What
were the names of those Blacks they killed then
Who
did they kill? What are you?
WHAT
ARE YOU BLACK PEOPLE!!!!???? WHERE ARE YOU!!!!????
I
often go down to the sea & stand looking out across
wondering
How
many of my people rest now out there their bones eaten
by fish
thrown
there, in those waters form slave ships years ago
abandoned
to die in a turbulent sea whipped by the hands of white
masters
who
were they? What were the names of those Blacks they
killed then
No
one knows, no one knows, they are dead, killed only
because their skins were Black
One
day bones will wash from the sea and rest gleaming in
the sun on eastern seaboard shores
let
them then try to lie to you, let them try explaining
where those bones come from
those
bones, bones of our ancestors, dead, killed, murdered
nameless
Black people, countless Black people we don't even know
now
Black
bones form the sea, Black bones
Bones
Black bones washed upon the shore, washed upon the sand
Black
bones resting in the sand from the sea, no home, no
name, just bones
Legs
& arms, large, small bones, Black bones Black bones
thrown up from the sea
Black
bones from the sea, Black bones
And
when I die throw me too into that sea facing toward
Black Africa
Let
fish eat my hair, and my eyes, and my Black flesh
Let
me go home again and if not home at least to the bottom
where
I know others rest
Let
me join others like me dead at the bottom
BLACK
FOREVER MORE!!!!!!
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Late in 1969 we published five small books of poetry: The
Reluctant Rebel by Renaldo Fernandez, Dark Waters by
Quo Vadis Gex, Visions From The Ghetto by Raymond
Washington, I Want Me A Home by Nayo Watkins, and my
debut book, The Blues Merchant.
I
did not have any one particular style of writing. Some of the
pieces were blues poems; some were wild, quasi surrealistic
screamers; some were long narratives; and some were straight out
promo for whatever belief system I had at the time. In reviewing
the work, I was immediately struck by a poem called "The
Blues (in two parts)". Periodically I would return to this
same device, writing a poem specifically about the blues which
used blues images and structure.
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The
Blues (in two parts)
I
Our
best singers
can't
really sing
you
take like otis redding
that
nigger never could sing
in
fact I believe he only knew
maybe
two notes at the most
&
a couple of
phrases/no
melody
strictly
atonal stuff
i
mean like what does
yes
are am mean
or
even na-na-na
what's
da matter baby
mr.
redding you is singing
like
you is in a hurry or
something,
maybe you
got
to go to the bathroom
&
now you take that
lil
ugly no singing nigger
James
brown
now
he can dance his
ass
off, ain't no
doubt
bout that
but
he can't sing
not
a lick &
talkin
bout a
lickin
stick
somebody
need to
beat
him all upside
his
haid w/h his own
damn
lickin stick
&
that band
he
got, they don't know
nothin
but one song
that's
how come
they
got to have
two
drummers
them
two dudes is suppose
to
be among the best
we
got/black
people
we gon have to do better
or
shut our mouth
cause
I mean
what
is mother popcorn and
for
sho dum-dum de-de de-dum-dum
ain't
no song
II
The
blues is not song
it
is singing
no
voice
is
needed
only
the knowledge
the
blues is not
not
notes
it
is feeling
it
is not death
it
is being
it
is not submission
it
is existing
you
take the ing
it
is the ing of th-ings
whether
it be
laugh-ing
or dy-ing
swing-ing
or hang-ing
from
a tree
sometimes
it be
hurting
so bad
when
you is singing
or
feeling the blues
till
you just have to
drop
the g trying
to
e-eeee-eeee-assssssse
on
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