Rita Dove, Edwidge Danticat, and the New York Times

[By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]

Reality evaporates, and a quark restores reality. The change escapes notice. Good. The reaction allows writing to produce stasis, the five-dimensional space in which we write.

If your mind, spirit, and body demand that you write, write. But be honest, or, as we said in the flame-blooming 1960s, be "for real." Writing that gains the world's respect is not a spewing of disassembled feelings nor is it a pampering of your ego. Writing is work, a disciplined discovery of patterns and ideas in words. You must have a sense of human history in order to know your address in time. you must train yourself to cope with rejection and use it as a reason to perfect your craft. Before you begin writing, read widely and wisely. Study your tools---words and the options for organizing them. Study how and hwy your literary ancestors, be they poets, philosopher, or historians of science, have used the tools to communicate effectively. Chew language slowly and reflect deeply on the ideas the flavors release. Then write. Know for whom you are writing and why. Above all, discipline yourself and let your writing become an act of love, a gift of talent for now and the future.

Lucille Clifton: The People's Poet

[By Jeff Westover]

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 (BOA Editions, 2012), edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser, makes available "all the poems Lucille Clifton published in book form during her lifetime" as well as a significant amount of her unpublished poetry (xxvii). This 769-page volume is a welcome addition to the list of Clifton's publications, since it includes work not gathered in two earlier selections (Good Woman, 1987 and Blessing the Boats, 2000), including Clifton's last two published books of poems (Mercy, 2004, and Voice, 2008), an unpublished yet impressive 2006 set of poems titled "Book of Days," eleven "Last Poems and Drafts," and a substantial number of poems composed (but never published) before her first book, Good Times, came out in 1969. 

In Mary Carole McCauley's review of the book published in the Baltimore Sun on October 20, 2012, co-editor Michael S. Glaser explains that he rescued several of Clifton's late poems from oblivion. In an illuminating afterward to the volume, fellow editor Kevin Young elaborates: "when she cleaned out her office after retiring in 2005, she threw away a number of things, including poems, many in her hand or with her clear edits-- all of which are now part of her archive...The typescript for "Book of Days" was among these discards, complete it seems without any editorial markings or even her name" (746). 

History Redux 2013: Umbra and FST

[By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]

Two symposia, "Talkin Revolution," (New Orleans, October 17-20) and "Celebrating the Umbra Workshop," (New York, November 1) will cast light on the matter of history redux, the ways people remember and reconfigure specific moments of cultural development.

The wording of David Henderson's announcement about the Umbra symposium is instructive:

Join us for a half century celebration of the Umbra Workshop! Founded on New York's Lower East Side in 1961 and dispersed in 1964, Umbra's influence on American literature continues to this day. The Umbra Workshop was comprised of an aesthetically diverse group of young artists, many with "a strong commitment to 'nonliterary' black culture." The Workshop was nurtured by people as disparate as Langston Hughes and Andy Young, actively engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, in questions of diversity in letters, and, later, in the Black Arts Movement. The first in a series of gatherings, this event bring together several of the founding members, including poets, novelists, and activists Steve Cannon, David Henderson, Rashidah Ismali, Joe Johnson and Ishmael Reed for readings and conversation and focusing on some of the complex aesthetic, political, social, and literary relationships that informed this legendary Workshop. 

We Want the Funk

[By Erin Ranft]

Today in my Afrofuturism course, I channeled Tony Bolden and Howard Rambsy II. After having the opportunity to learn from Bolden and Rambsy over the summer at the NEH Summer Institute, "Don't Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry" at the University of Kansas, I was anxious to put music and poetry listening sessions to work in the classroom. And what a session it was!

In preparation for our discussion of Funk, and specifically Afrofuturist elements of Funk music primarily by Parliament, the students read some background information on the musical genre and the different productions by Parliament. After a group presented their findings on the readings, the class listened to tracks from Mothership Connection. Feet were tapping, shoulders shrugging in time, and heads were bobbing. We were 'on the one.'

Rickey Vincent, in Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One, defines 'the one' as a point when "a harmony among all people is achieved." We were there, on the one during our listening session and in the discussion that followed. To add to this, the students also read Etheridge Knight's "It Was a Funky Deal" to add dimensions to our understandings of 'funk' as a term, idea, and a genre that developed prior to and alongside the Black Arts Movement.

Line by line, the students went through the lyrics from Mothership Connection and lines of Knight's poem, adding their understandings and interpretations of these texts to the overall course theme of Afrofuturism. Utilizing the practices, methods, and ideas related to poetry and music employed by Bolden and Rambsy were, well, instrumental.

What a day, and a day when I felt the presence of all the fellows, faculty, and staff from the Don't Deny Summer Institute.

We gotta have that funk.