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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.)
Tom Dent &
Nkombo
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
in * * *
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<---Freshman
at SUNO
When I Do That Thing--->
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update 3 May
2009
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