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Books by Louis Reyes Rivera
Sanchocho: A Book of Nuyorican Poetry /
Scattered
Scripture /
Bum Rush the Page
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Interview
with Prize-Winning Poet
Louis Reyes Rivera
Part 3 Rudy:
The setting for the poems in Scattered
Scripture range from Puerto Rico to New York, or maybe I
should say, from the Caribbean to the U.S., but generally the
setting sweeps across the Americas, which is the world this book
of poems attempts to encompass. Of course, at the edge or at the
borders of this world are Spain and England (Europe) and Africa.
In this world of the Americas, from your poems and their
historical perspective {e.g. “(grito de lares)" and
"(like Toussaint, so Marti)”}, we observe and experience
colonial expansion and destruction of native cultures and
peoples; political and military intervention and the
destabilization of governments and economies.
You
believe, I understand, that the most crucial period for the
Caribbean was 1850-1898. That during this period there was a
real possibility that the Caribbean could have gained an
autonomy that could have prevented many of the problems that
presently exist for the peoples of the Caribbean, among the
nations of the Caribbean and between them and the United States.
Does your perspective take into consideration the internal
differences -- culture, language, race, proclivities, etc. -- of
the peoples and the states of the Caribbean? Is it possible that
the problems of the Caribbean and Latin America may be more
internal than external?
Louis Rivera: First,
your understanding of the range and hemispheric connections in Scattered Scripture is on target. Understand as well that while the
Caribbean is central to the book (as it is also the geographic
center of the hemisphere), it is still just a metaphor for a
planetary condition, i.e., all roads led to the Caribbean!
Second, in terms of the internal differences you point to,
"culture, language, [definition of] race, [your own
national and individual] proclivities" are factors you
inherit from the past and are conditioned into accepting as
true.
As my footnotes to Scattered
Scripture indicate, six major European nations invaded and
established settler states in the Americas: Spain, Portugal,
England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark (with Sweden). We
inherit not only each of those respective idioms, but as well,
the warring differences between the so-called "mother
nations," even to the point where we absorb their tribal
hatreds/political conflicts, one with the other, and make them
ours.
The reason I wrote the book and focused on certain aspects of
the history was to point to those contradictions that we have
all inherited from European conflicts (British West Indians,
French West Indies, Spanish Caribbean, Anglo-American arrogance
and eventual usurpation --like "manifest destiny," and
what that implies). The ties that bind the cultures in the
Caribbean are both the European contradiction and the African
connectives, both of which have served as mutual hallmark to
both cultural contradiction and sovereign self-assertion
throughout Caribbean history.
Culturally speaking, the problems of the Caribbean and Latin
America and North Anglo-America all stem from European imposed
cultural dictates and from something we are all in denial of...
the caste character of class distinctions: creole, mestizo,
mesclado, octoroon, quadroon, mulatto, Negro, African, Indian--
are all terms that have come to define the quality of access
that each of us have --what defines, according to some other,
the degree (check that out!) to which we are to be viewed and
treated as humans.
While much of today's conflicts do bear internal contradictions
(peonage, creole class, mestizo rule, "high yellow"
octoroonisms), still much is determined by external economic
forces at work. The Big Seven (Canada, U.S.A., Italy, France,
England, Germany, Japan), as bases for conglomerates, determine
much of the economic development taking place throughout the
Americas, as can be seen through the stranglehold on the
Caribbean, which still serves as breadbasket to external
interests. Neo-laissez faire economic systems still play havoc
upon national/ regional/individual self-determination, and those
systems are much stronger as factors here than the cultural
differences we accentuate.
Cuba, by the way, is the only nation in this hemisphere that
actually addresses the issue head-on. Don't forget that what
defeated Michael Manley in Jamaica was his insistence on
Jamaican-Cuban economic relations being a matter of sovereign
choice, not a matter of whether or not Jamaica should submit to
the dictates of others, i.e., the USNA. As well, what served as
political ruse to the North American public justifying a Reagan
invasion of Grenada and the elimination of Maurice Bishop was
the fact that Cuba was helping Grenada update its
tourist-centered airport. But what many here don't know is that
the Cubans have been putting out a quarterly journal through
Casa de las Americas which publishes articles from throughout
the Caribbean in the languages that they were originally written
in --English, French, Spanish, Papimiento, etc. -- as part of
its insistence on open dialogue within the region.
Third, what makes the period 1850-98 so crucial a period for
everyone to study includes the following factors: (1) this is
the period in our history that has served as part of the
continuum begun with the Haitian Revolution, including its
influence on the 1800 Gabriel Prosser revolt in Virginia, the
1822 Vesey Conspiracy in South Carolina, etc. From 1795-1844,
Haitian agents provocateurs were constantly being sent out to
help organize revolts in Cuba, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Jamaica,
etc. Enter the 1850s, with Belvis, Betances and Hostos, each of
whom were constantly at work during their lifetimes (culminating
in the 1898 so-called Spanish-American War) serving as bridges
of possibility.
(2)
with regards to Afro-United States history. The 1850s begin with
the reassertion of the Fugitive Slave laws built inside the US
Constitution and culminates in John Brown's scheme to organize
and direct guerilla war in Appalachia, which itself grew out of
the fact that guerilla war was already being waged there by
Runaway bands. The 1860s mark the end of serfdom in Russia, the
Dutch abolition of slavery in their colonies, the US Civil War
that itself culminates in emancipation, the beginnings &
weaknesses of the Reconstruction period, etc. This is happening
at the same time that Puerto Ricans are pushing for joint
ventures within the Caribbean region. Bear in mind that the Ten
Years' War was organized and participated in by Puerto Ricans,
Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, Sephardic Jews, etal, willing to
find ways in which to eventually undo what the six European
colonizing nations had set up as contradiction between them.
Central to a clear understanding of the relation between Afro-U.S.
history and contentions is the Caribbean role in it all, from
the beginning of the Columbian voyages and introduction of
Africans as chattel slaves straight through to the actual
beginning of an hemispheric African American Renaissance that
runs from at least 1888 through to tomorrow.
In short, the period, 1850-1898, is wrought with parallels that
bear repercussions throughout the planet.
Yes, internecine contradictions within the Americas, the
Caribbean islands, etc., are still plaguing us all. And I do
keep that in mind. Don't forget that the poem, “(what are they
doing...)” points to that contradiction in Puerto Rico (as a
metaphor)... "dividing pardos, free but colored/ from
triguenos, slightly colored/ from morenos, simply colored/ from
prietos negros, warm but black/did you hear Betances, Puerto
Rico..."
Until we are willing to engage the redefinition of ourselves,
this curse of caste will remain with us as a point of
contention.
When you don't eat as well as I do, you and I develop enough
differences between us as to render us in conflict. When both of
us are not eating well, we will jump at one another's throats.
When others place us in competition for the little bit we each
can garner, we see enemy when we look upon one another.
Today, NYC "native" residents view Mexican, Korean,
Dominican and certain East Indian immigrants as enemy, directly
in competition for the lower level jobs available, as an
immigrant (not knowing the rate of pay) will work for less.
Fifty years ago, that conflict was between Ricans & Blacks.
But all of that is rooted in class and caste differences and
contradictions. Meanwhile, the ones who manipulate it all are
apparently exoneratedly overlooked.
Rudy: Religion and
the church do not stand for very much in your poems. Or maybe I
should say that officials of the church and religion are not
highly regarded from your poetic perspective. I have two poems
in mind: “(jonestown in question)” and “(beneath the robes
of a priest).” One might say, however, that “(one short
note)” is a great contrast to those two poems. In this
memorable poem, a religious song, an ancestral memory, is
transformed into vitalizing social values. Are we to thus to
assume, then, that religion and the church have important roles
to play in the struggle for social and political liberation?
Louis Rivera: Not so
much the issue or point of religion and the church, but the
religiosity of people, their spiritual sides which they never
deny. Please note that all three poems deal with different
aspects of our condition and our relationship to that condition
through belief systems. (jonestown...) explores and exposes the
jackleg preacher --in this case, white-- as hustler and
demagogue. Bear in mind that the "preaching pimp"
objectifies the believers searching for something to call their
own and relying on their faith in his congame to realize their
aspirations. For me, the believers are to be subjectified --the
subjects, not objects, of the poem, even while they are being
objectified by others. It's their hope that is central. And to
believe in one human as ultimate savior, instead of holding onto
and living the principles that we all contribute to our own
liberation, is dangerous. Holding distorted belief systems can
do us in. Religion here is likened to a bird of prey. The
contradiction here is our capacity to believe in something
"other than ourselves," our own capacity to do.
In (beneath the robes of a priest), we have the earlier forms of
contradiction, in that the woman believes she has no choice but
to bring her raped daughter to the priest, only to learn the
hard way that he is as much a rapist as the slaveowner's son.
This, by the way, was written long before the church scandals
regarding pedophilia became prominent in the news. I discovered
in my readings that the priests were the largest single class of
miscegenators in this hemisphere. That issue, without insulting
the need for faith, had to be dealt with.
(one short note), conversely, exemplifies the way in which,
despite our condition, we keep a faith and create a culture out
of the transformation of old beliefs (kumbaya) and new condition
(come by here, lord) into maintained faith. While this poem
affirms that we do not deny our spirituality, the other two
poems forces the reader to look at the exploitation organized
religion exemplifies in our daily lives.
Rudy: I am very
interested in the relationship of poetry and music. I read the
comments you wrote about Weldon Irvine and “his ability to
extemporaneously swing right with the voice of each poet.”
That says a lot about the sensitivity of Weldon. But what about
the poet--how does he translate the music in his head into music
of words? From other statements, I know you have an admiration
for Langston Hughes and his efforts at connecting poetry to
blues and jazz.
Technically,
I know nothing about music, though I know how to listen for
emphasis and rhythm. Your poems I read aloud, I can attest to
the music in them. But I am not quite sure what I mean when I
say that. I assume many feel your “(cu/bop)” poem is a very
musical poem. According to Kalamu ya Salaam, there is a lot of
misunderstanding on this question of music and poetry. He says
one has to understand “the subtleties and nuances of music”
in order to make music in a poem truly effective.
Does
any of this, what I am asking make any sense? Your poems are
philosophical and introspective, yet many of them beg to be read
aloud. Isn’t that somewhat unusual?
Louis Rivera: Let's
work backwards here. George Edward Tait says something to the
effect that poetry is the music of literature as music is the
poetry of sound. Urbanized African American and Nuyorican poets
in particular tend to write poetry that is both heard and read.
That is viewed as "innovative" or "unusual"
in the sense of the European dictate. I remember when I first
published Sekou Sundiata's volume of verse, FREE!, a reviewer
wrote that to appreciate the full range of Sekou's poetry,
"Indo-European pace and nuance simply won't do." Sekou
asked me what I thought that meant. I answered, they don't know
what to do with your work. They like simple categories.
To be read and heard at the same time is partly attributable to
that African holdover principle that integrates music, dance,
poem (call and response) as interconnective and inseparable. The
philosophical introspection you speak of is "the story
line" -- the substance of why I write. The condition I'm
faced with is "what" I write about, what I respond to;
but how to effectuate it in poetry cannot be philosophical, nor
can it be prosaic just for the sake of propaganda. It's poetry.
That means that it is a blending of sound and sense and color
(i.e., the rhythm as flow, the experience as substance, the
image as metaphor, respectively) into one composition. Of
course, I grew up in a church; of course, I was taught to listen
to Bird and Monk and Nina; of course, I come out of that Salsa,
Bomba, Plena, Calypso-Merengue beat inside the home; of course,
I was nurtured off that urban blues sound (doowop, rhythm &
blues, rock n roll) -- they all frame my nuantic ear as I
connect syllabication with the image that I'm painting on a page
-- And it is for purposes of making that line jump off the page
directly into your ear.
Keep in mind that poets are not published or viewed as
publishable anywhere near the same manner as fiction writers,
porno materialists, essayists, journalists. For poets to make
any dent, as in the word "career," they have to read
their works out loud to live audiences, in order to sell their
(more often than not) self-published samplings, and thereby
garner audience and interest in their work. But your audience
doesn't have a copy of your poem in front of them. So you have
to make that poem come off the page and into the ear.
Consequently, your sense of the poetic will be fashioned
accordingly --the line is structured to be heard as much as read
and contemplated upon.
Like Ellington said (it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that
swing), "Now, that's Jazz!" So that when you can do it
on the page with words, well, that's poetry!... The subtleties
and nuances that Kalamu refers to is not so much that you have
to study musical notation, but that you have to listen to the
sounds that you yourself are making with that particular line,
that image, that specific juxtaposition of words you are
exploring, that statement you wish to make. But poetry is not
just statement. It is sound. Sound is word. Word is music.
Music, or musicality, is very much part of your arsenal of
devices simply because you are human, and humans bring music
into everything they do, from the process of being birthed and
engaging that very first breath. It's spiritual, i.e., part of
your consciousness.
What we call diction and language are refined elements that are
also part of the conscious/unconscious/subconscious sides of
what you are. What you put out there is your conscience, your
ethic, your self-assertion and affirmation. But how do you, the
poet, make it work as a line, a poem, a lyric? You learn to
listen to that which moves inside of you sans diction --which is
what they mean with onomatopoeia. The sound is and is not a word
Technically, you do know quite a lot about music, because it
does require listening to the emphasis of a word, a syllable
(how do you say outloud these two words: soft and demand?), a
beat beat rhythmic tilt and lilt. It's all around you --birds,
leaves, wind, breeze, teardrop. If you can use the word, caress,
you know both the sound and the meaning, otherwise you could not
"attest" to the music you hear in the poems I write.
And check it out: I was able to compel you to do both:
contemplate the image of what I was saying and hear the sound in
how I said it. Now, that's Jazz!
Do you remember the first time you heard Coltrane in a dimlit
room with friends and wine, and someone commenting about this
one lengthy chord of notes he hit, "did you hear
that?" And you said, "yeah."
Rudy: I was quite
struck by your contrast of James Baldwin and John Oliver Killens.
I know a couple of leading black writers who swear by Baldwin.
As for myself, I like Killens. I would even say I am fond of
Killens. I enjoyed his And
Then We Heard the Thunder and his Cotillion.
I can’t say I have really enjoyed Baldwin, though I think his
first novel Go Tell It on
the Mountain was important for me, that is, on the question
of the role of religion in black life. Many writers and literary
people think that Baldwin is extremely important for them as a
stylist, for framing the right question. In setting up your
distinction between Baldwin and Killens, you said that
"Baldwin, for the most part, wrote to a so-called white
audience" and thus was "more acceptable and
absorbable." Killens "spoke and wrote more directly to
African Americans" and thus, you more or less conclude, has
become a "forgotten phenomenon."
In
this instance, or in general, is there really an objective way
of judging what excellent writer is the better writer and more
influential -- or why one excellent writer is held up and
another ignored? Do you think that Killens having been your
father-in-law may have influenced your preference for him and
his style and emphasis?
Louis Rivera: First,
Baldwin is not a novelist. He's an essayist. So he can frame the
question in a way that is compelling. A great essayist and a
compelling writer. But from 1947 through 1970, who was the
audience for the essayist? And how do I explain to you what my
pain is?
You see, that is not a detraction of Baldwin. However, bear in
mind, that except for Go
Tell It On The Mountain (the novel) and The
Fire Next Time (which moved me too as a brilliant essay), he
was explaining his (our) pain to the other, more so than to us,
to one another.
The
novelist, on the other hand, does not argue. He paints an entire
picture, a mural; or to mix a metaphor, he is creating an entire
world. That's harder to do than to argue inside points of
contention about whether or not my humanity is equal to yours.
Who should be my audience there, in that world I create? Whom am
I trying to reach?
Second, I read a lot. And if a teacher told me this person or
that was the one to read, I'd read him. My favorite novelist
from the United States was John Steinbeck. He touched me more
than any other (from this country) up until the time I met the
woman who was to be my wife. And since her father, with whom I
was not at all familiar (who gets promoted and packaged and who
doesn't?), was a writer too, I figured that I should find out
who this fellow was by reading his work. I started with his
first novel, Youngblood,
and worked my way through the rest of his books in the order
that he had written and published them. Well, after Youngblood,
there was ...Thunder.
And when I finished that one, I told Steinbeck to move over.
There was a contender for his throne. His books speak directly
to those who struggle with the condition facing them, appeasing
no one. And on his terms. And with finesse, craft, movement,
much more poetic than he would give himself credit for.
Third, my response to the question you posed: the tendency in
this country and culture here, as with Europe in general, is to
look at things only in the form of absolutes. Bad play. There
are so many degrees of possibility and variation existing inside
the space that separates the poles of absolutes that we cheat
ourselves when we don't look at difference and degrees as part
and parcel of the whole. There's room only for "one at a
time." Who's the baddest or the meanest or the most gifted?
That's like taking a droplet of water out of the river and
playing like the droplet is the river itself. What about the
trillions of other droplets that make a river possible?
Clint Eastwood makes a movie about Charlie Parker, called Bird. You see the movie, and, except for Dizzy Gillespie, you would
think that no other Beboppers were out there, not Monk, Bud
Powell, the Afro-Cubanists, Trane, Ben Webster, Max Roach, etc.
Similarly, Motown puts out Lady
Sings the Blues, with no one but Billie Holiday and a backup
trio exists, not Ella or Sarah, or Carmen McRae, much less her
relationship to all those musicians, beginning with Lester
Young. You dig?
We
look only at Langston Hughes, hardly anyone else from the 20s,
30s, 40s. With Killens and Baldwin, they start at roughly the
same time, publish their first books about the same time, are
equally influential and impactive, particularly on the Black
literati and overall community, even die within a month of one
another, but it's Baldwin, not both, who makes it into the
classroom.
No
one asks which is greater --Hemingway, Faulkner, Pound, Eliot,
Cummings, etc. With Killens and Baldwin, I find it most
interesting that Killens remained in the U.S., directly
influencing how many writers (inestimable number -- as with how
many were influenced by Sterling Brown as by Langston Hughes)
over how many generations from 1947 thru 1987, while Baldwin
preferred exile (a la Richard Wright) and to influence a black
literati from a distance.
But
without getting into such fine hairs, my argument is that: (1)
each generation converges as a grouping, not as singles; (2)
when it comes to the period they represent, you cannot speak of
Baldwin without speaking of Killens, like Martin and Malcolm,
without doing disservice to history and actuality themselves;
and (3) we accept too quickly, without hardly a question, the
yardstick of "one at a time" that is pushed upon us
directly because the imposer of such yardsticks cannot accept
the fact that the river does comprise such many droplets. Art
& Literature, cultural work, like movement itself, comprises
an entire range of bad, poor, adequate, good and great --all of
it together. To view it otherwise is to say it does not exist
except as anomaly, which, in effect, is antihuman.
Rudy:
What do you mean Baldwin was not a novelist? There was much more
than Go Tell It on the Mountain, considerably more. You might not like
them, but there are at least five other novels -- one of which, If
Beale Street Could Talk, I thought was pretty good. Not the
usual Baldwin fare, but good. There are probably those who think
Giovanni's Room and Another
Country are better novels than his first. And surely his
short stories deserve considerable praise, like "Sonny's
Blues," which is well-anthologized.
So what is the meaning of such a cryptic, curt remark, as
Baldwin was an essayist? Can one leave such a remark hanging?
Obviously there is a value judgment in there somewhere, one that
needs considerably more explanation.
Louis Rivera: It
could be that this is simply a matter of my opinion. I'm a poet,
an essayist and an editor. Where is my strength? In which of the
two genres, in which of the three slants? I believe that while I
can edit my ass off and come up with some fairly solid essays,
the poetry is where my real strength comes out.
Killens wrote screenplays, dramas, essays, short stories,
novels. Where is his strength? His heart? The screenplays were
good (Slaves & Odds Against Tomorrow were made into movies),
his essays are strong, but his fullest strength is in the
telling of the yarn, creating an entire world and having fun
while sweating each aspect out. That's his heart. He's a
novelist.
I read Go Tell It On The
Mountain, The Fire
Next Time, Blues for Mr. Charlie, a number of his short stories, etc. Giovanni's
Room, I tried to read no less than on three occasions. It
was boring, no action, making it impossible for me to get past
the first 40 pages. Put it down, picked it up again (mostly
because I liked him so much), but couldn't get past the same 40.
I actually liked Another
Country, though I found it lacking in many respects,
particularly with elements missing: climbing climax, weak
denouement, one basic likable character, no real conflict, but
like a couple of hundred pages on self discovery. Still I liked
the attempt.
Where Baldwin really turned himself on and made me look at his
wonder was in the essay, even when couched in fictionalization.
Brilliant questions, even more brilliant analysis. You hear him
talk, and he runs with everything. Compelling. But the strength
is in the argument, the phrasings, the analysis. I've seen him
in person, heard him discuss, being interviewed, even in
roundtable discourse that was more private than public.
For
me, his strength, his heart was what we call the essay form. So,
I say that. Maybe I should look up Beale
Street. That one I missed. By the time it came out, my head
was elsewhere. Maybe it is a matter of simply first impression.
But I devoted 14 years of careful study of every form of writing
there is --I mean study--before I decided on Poet First, and I
believe (however incorrectly) that I can call it (the form).
When
someone says Langston Hughes, I think Poet, first and foremost,
even with Simple. The Ways of White Folks was a solid attempt at short stories and
worth reading. But Poet first and foremost. Similarly, with
Baldwin (probably among the very best), Essayist, first and
foremost. Killens, Novelist, first and foremost.
Believe
it or not, I do not consider Malcolm to be Orator First and
Foremost, because with his speeches the Spirit of Poet is all
inside there. And if folks were to evaluate him as a literary
figure, some may very well agree with me that he was probably
the single most outstanding extemporaneous [Slave] Narrative
Poet the United States has ever produced.
The distinctions I make have more to do with the strength of
you, the heart of you. Not to be taken as judgment of you, but
as evaluation of the work in print, on its own terms. Am I
missing something? Okay. I don't object.
Rudy:
Your response was excellent. Instead of the "Janitor of
History" maybe you should be called a Muhammad Ali of
literary analysis and response. You sure know how to stick and
jab and move away before a blow can be landed. Ali even as
Cassius Clay was my childhood hero. He was a wonder and so are
you.
Louis
Rivera: Well, what do you
know? So I made sense, huh? That fascinates me; not that I don't
know that I can think, but that, given the standard view (what
they call 'prevailing wisdom'), I wonder sometimes if I'm the
one not looking at "what" correctly. So, whenever
someone says, "I understand," I'm still amazed. Thank
you
Rudy: Let’s move onto
another topic
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