Toi Derricotte, Haki Madhubuti, and Naomi Long Madgett Interviews Final Cut, 1994 September 29 - 1994 October 1 [FF0113]
AV File 1
Annotations
00:30 - 00:37
Opal Moore: I can't, I can't
begin any other way except to
say that I don't believe I'm
interviewing you, Toi Derricote.
00:37 - 00:43
Opal Moore: And, uh, it was, it was wonderful
just to see you walking across
the room towards me yesterday.
00:44 - 00:44
Opal Moore: Wow.
00:44 - 00:48
Opal Moore: Talking about, you're looking to talk
to me, but I'm looking to talk to you.
00:48 - 01:00
Opal Moore: Um, you've written a number of works
that, uh, I have been, um, profoundly
moved by, because I, I hear you talking
about women in a very uncompromising way.
01:00 - 01:05
Opal Moore: In Empress of the Death House,
Natural Birth, Captivity.
01:05 - 01:10
Opal Moore: And I want to ask you about,
uh, something that I think is
forthcoming, the Black Notebooks.
01:11 - 01:11
Opal Moore: Yeah, and some
01:11 - 01:12
Toi Derricotte: work after that, too.
01:12 - 01:14
Toi Derricotte: I'm working on some poems after that.
01:14 - 01:14
Toi Derricotte: Right.
01:15 - 01:22
Opal Moore: The first thing I
wanted to ask is to ask you about
a comment that you made yesterday
in your, uh, before your reading.
01:22 - 01:29
Opal Moore: You quoted the Gnostic Gospels and you
said, If you bring forth what is within
you, what is within you will save you.
01:29 - 01:35
Opal Moore: If you do not bring forth what is within
you, what is within you will destroy you.
01:35 - 01:38
Opal Moore: Could you say more about that
and how that's behind your work?
01:39 - 01:40
Toi Derricotte: Um,
01:41 - 01:42
Toi Derricotte: I think that
01:43 - 01:48
Toi Derricotte: I place a lot of importance
on the body itself.
01:49 - 02:00
Toi Derricotte: What, uh, what, what we've learned
about our bodies, as women, as black
women, uh, and a lot of the things
02:00 - 02:09
Toi Derricotte: we've learned about our bodies, uh,
the lessons are inside us, and they're
not good lessons about ourselves.
02:10 - 02:19
Toi Derricotte: And I think one of the things that is very
important for the writer to do, what the
writer can do for himself or herself, but
02:19 - 02:38
Toi Derricotte: also for the larger community, is to, um,
to in some way, um, bring forth some parts
of the identity that have been repressed.
02:38 - 02:38
Toi Derricotte: very much.
02:39 - 02:49
Toi Derricotte: One of the things that, that
Audre Lorde talks about is, um,
how silence will not save us.
02:50 - 03:04
Toi Derricotte: And, um, it seems to me that
shame is, is a way that we keep
things going in the same cycles.
03:04 - 03:12
Toi Derricotte: In other words, um, We've been
taught not to talk about certain
things because we're ashamed of
03:12 - 03:16
Toi Derricotte: those attributes, those thoughts,
those feelings, those experiences.
03:17 - 03:24
Toi Derricotte: Uh, and so our society sort of
rewards us for keeping things secret.
03:25 - 03:34
Toi Derricotte: However, the problem with that is
that as long as those secrets remain
intact, we may have an image of it.
03:35 - 03:36
Toi Derricotte: That's okay.
03:37 - 03:41
Toi Derricotte: Uh, on the, the external, uh,
presentation of ourselves.
03:41 - 03:44
Toi Derricotte: And even this is true in our
poetry, too, in our literature.
03:44 - 03:47
Toi Derricotte: It, it, it may be all okay on the surface.
03:47 - 04:00
Toi Derricotte: But, in some way, we are just feeding into
that same system that is causing internal,
uh, uh, violence, really, to the self.
04:00 - 04:03
Toi Derricotte: So part of the way of
breaking that cycle, I think.
04:04 - 04:12
Toi Derricotte: is to enumerate, detail, and clarify
what's really going on, uh, inside of us.
04:12 - 04:16
Toi Derricotte: And I think art can serve an
important use in that way.
04:17 - 04:19
Opal Moore: How do you find
people responding to your work?
04:19 - 04:24
Opal Moore: Um, what I'm thinking is that, I
don't think of the black community
as having very many secrets.
04:24 - 04:30
Opal Moore: Uh, we may, it seems as though we're,
we're always, uh, being studied.
04:30 - 04:32
Opal Moore: We're always being discussed.
04:32 - 04:33
Opal Moore: Our lives are always being talked about.
04:33 - 04:38
Opal Moore: We're always before this
kind of examining, uh, lens.
04:38 - 04:43
Opal Moore: And if you're talking about secrecy in
your work, it seems to me that, that you
must be talking about something, Much
04:43 - 04:48
Opal Moore: more specific than what, uh, we usually
think of when we, when we say secret.
04:48 - 04:49
Toi Derricotte: Like,
04:49 - 04:53
Toi Derricotte: what, what, what are the, we, what are,
how are we usually, uh, do you think,
04:54 - 04:55
Toi Derricotte: uh, put under a microscope?
04:55 - 05:03
Opal Moore: Well, it seems to me, if,
if we're talking about black women,
black women's lives and privacies have
always been public, it seems to me.
05:04 - 05:05
Toi Derricotte: Like what?
05:05 - 05:11
Opal Moore: Well, if you, if
you're talking about, you have
been talking about issues of color.
05:11 - 05:11
Opal Moore: Mm hmm.
05:12 - 05:15
Opal Moore: Um, things that we conceal
with regard to color.
05:15 - 05:16
Toi Derricotte: Mm hmm.
05:16 - 05:23
Opal Moore: Issues of sex, things
that we conceal, secrecies, uh,
related to, to, uh, sexuality.
05:23 - 05:23
Toi Derricotte: Mm hmm.
05:23 - 05:29
Opal Moore: And yet it seems to me that
in those two areas alone, if we think
about the lives of black women, Our
05:29 - 05:36
Opal Moore: sexuality was, was, was thrown open to
the world during slavery and, and we've
never, we've never recovered privacy.
05:36 - 05:37
Toi Derricotte: Oh, I see.
05:37 - 05:38
Toi Derricotte: Or in terms of color.
05:38 - 05:38
Toi Derricotte: I see.
05:38 - 05:40
Opal Moore: We are on our surfaces.
05:40 - 05:44
Opal Moore: We, we've never, uh, had any
kind of concealment there, so.
05:45 - 05:45
Toi Derricotte: That's interesting.
05:45 - 05:46
Opal Moore: How are
05:46 - 05:49
Opal Moore: these secrets then working
with black women in our lives?
05:49 - 05:50
Toi Derricotte: Well, um,
05:52 - 05:52
Toi Derricotte: one of the
05:52 - 06:03
Toi Derricotte: things I think is, um, that, Um,
there is this way in which we've
been categorized and, and as long
06:03 - 06:10
Toi Derricotte: as we fit neatly into that category
of experience, everything is okay.
06:10 - 06:25
Toi Derricotte: But in some way, all of us, black
and white, you know, American,
whatever, it's so hard for us to
break out of or see ourselves in more
06:25 - 06:33
Toi Derricotte: complicated ways than these, these
ways in which we've, our identities
have been compressed into something.
06:33 - 06:35
Toi Derricotte: Uh, well let me, let me say this.
06:35 - 06:48
Toi Derricotte: For example, in my, in my case, Uh, I
was raised in a black middle class family
and there was a lot of pressure on me.
06:49 - 06:58
Toi Derricotte: I thought there was a lot of pressure
on black middle class, uh, young
women to, to, to be nice girls.
06:59 - 07:14
Toi Derricotte: To be, Good girls, sweet girls, to, to, to
be sacrificing girls, to take care of our
families, to raise a strong, uh, uh, to
raise strong children, to give our lives.
07:14 - 07:21
Toi Derricotte: But there was a way in which we
were not supposed to be sexual
in any kind of public way.
07:22 - 07:35
Toi Derricotte: Um, uh, there, I felt that being
sexual Uh, acknowledging sexuality
was in a way doing exactly what
07:35 - 07:47
Toi Derricotte: you're talking about, joining that
stereotyped, um, uh, understanding
of our sexuality as black women.
07:47 - 07:56
Toi Derricotte: We were slaves, we were, we were
the ones who were promiscuous,
uh, and in some way our identity.
07:56 - 07:59
Toi Derricotte: was to counter, was supposed to counter.
08:00 - 08:02
Toi Derricotte: But that, again, was putting us in a box.
08:02 - 08:10
Toi Derricotte: Even though we weren't what they said we
were, we still had to be this other thing.
08:11 - 08:18
Toi Derricotte: And, um, but you see, what I
think is interesting is that what
I'm beginning to recognize is
08:22 - 08:32
Toi Derricotte: there, there was that way in which,
um, I was not supposed to acknowledge
my sexuality in any public way.
08:32 - 08:36
Toi Derricotte: But also, things were happening hidden.
08:37 - 08:51
Toi Derricotte: That, that, um, for example, black women
sitting around in a group at the kitchen
table with the door closed, talking
about their, their, their sexual lives.
08:52 - 08:58
Toi Derricotte: And that was there, but it was
sort of like the hidden parts.
08:59 - 09:06
Toi Derricotte: And I'm getting more and more in touch
with how complex our identities are.
09:07 - 09:10
Toi Derricotte: Um, and part of the way I'm doing
that is by writing about it.
09:10 - 09:15
Toi Derricotte: My second book was about the birth of
my son in a home for unwed mothers.
09:16 - 09:29
Toi Derricotte: And what happened there is when I was 19
years old, Um, I got pregnant, at that
time, uh, abortions, you know, weren't,
09:29 - 09:40
Toi Derricotte: weren't legal, and a lot of times girls
went away to have children, they came
back, uh, and, you know, they, they, maybe
09:40 - 09:47
Toi Derricotte: they gave their child up for adoption
and, and the, and you sort of didn't
acknowledge, uh, what had happened.
09:48 - 09:52
Toi Derricotte: Uh, there was a lot of shame around
09:55 - 09:58
Toi Derricotte: not, not necessarily having
sex, but being caught.
09:58 - 09:58
Opal Moore: Caught, yeah.
09:59 - 10:02
Toi Derricotte: And so,
uh, I didn't tell anybody.
10:03 - 10:08
Toi Derricotte: Uh, my own son didn't know this story
about his birth until he was 17 years old.
10:08 - 10:08
Toi Derricotte: Yeah.
10:09 - 10:14
Toi Derricotte: Uh, because that was
a very shameful thing.
10:14 - 10:14
Toi Derricotte: Yeah.
10:14 - 10:16
Toi Derricotte: In the black, black middle class.
10:16 - 10:16
Toi Derricotte: Okay.
10:17 - 10:18
Toi Derricotte: To, to, to get pregnant.
10:18 - 10:20
Toi Derricotte: Okay.
10:20 - 10:30
Toi Derricotte: So then I, I wanted to write a book that
not only acknowledged that, but also
made out of those feelings a work of art.
10:30 - 10:47
Toi Derricotte: And part of the thing about making it a
work of art was to say, okay, whatever
wasn't perfect, we can Perfect that in
some way, by creating something beautiful.
10:47 - 10:47
Toi Derricotte: Okay,
10:48 - 10:48
Opal Moore: alright.
10:49 - 10:50
Opal Moore: So the art will transform.
10:50 - 10:51
Toi Derricotte: Yeah.
10:51 - 10:58
Opal Moore: Um, the things that
we live to, to conceal the past
will actually reveal the past.
10:59 - 11:05
Opal Moore: What, I remember, um, I think I read
that, that you gave this poem to your son.
11:05 - 11:05
Opal Moore: Yeah.
11:05 - 11:07
Opal Moore: And what was his response?
11:07 - 11:08
Opal Moore: What did he say?
11:08 - 11:09
Toi Derricotte: He, he was, he's
11:09 - 11:09
Toi Derricotte: wonderful.
11:09 - 11:10
Toi Derricotte: He's an artist.
11:10 - 11:10
Toi Derricotte: Okay.
11:10 - 11:11
Toi Derricotte: You know?
11:11 - 11:12
Toi Derricotte: So.
11:12 - 11:22
Toi Derricotte: Um, what was so wonderful is he, the
first thing he said is, first of all he
said, I didn't know this had happened.
11:23 - 11:26
Toi Derricotte: He said, I didn't know
you suffered like this.
11:27 - 11:40
Toi Derricotte: And then, then that was his way of saying
to me, um, I was afraid for him to know
because I thought then he would think.
11:41 - 11:46
Toi Derricotte: My mother's not a perfect mother,
therefore I'm not a perfect child.
11:46 - 11:54
Toi Derricotte: Because there's that way that we're
constantly trying to be the perfect
person, so that the other person will
think they're the perfect person.
11:55 - 11:55
Opal Moore: Right.
11:55 - 11:58
Toi Derricotte: And to hold
up these images, you know?
11:58 - 11:58
Toi Derricotte: Okay.
11:58 - 12:02
Toi Derricotte: And that was his way of saying
what you were afraid of.
12:05 - 12:06
Toi Derricotte: Don't be afraid of that.
12:07 - 12:11
Toi Derricotte: And at the same time, he was saying
to me, I see who you really are.
12:11 - 12:13
Toi Derricotte: It was just so wonderful.
12:13 - 12:20
Toi Derricotte: It was a great act of the
way our children can save us.
12:20 - 12:31
Toi Derricotte: The way we can, I think, um, save each
other through seeing who we really are
and, and, uh, and acknowledging that.
12:31 - 12:32
Toi Derricotte: Hearing each
12:32 - 12:32
Toi Derricotte: other.
12:33 - 12:45
Opal Moore: Speaking of children, um, we
were talking yesterday and I wanted to ask
you more about this, this, um, idea of how
adults talk to or do not talk to children.
12:45 - 12:49
Opal Moore: You were saying you didn't want your son
to know the circumstances of his birth.
12:50 - 13:00
Opal Moore: Um, I think of when I teach classes,
how many black students do not want
to talk about slavery because they
have white students there in the room.
13:00 - 13:03
Opal Moore: If it's an all black classroom,
okay, fine, we can talk about that.
13:03 - 13:07
Opal Moore: But if it's a white classroom
or predominantly white, then
13:08 - 13:08
Opal Moore: You know,
13:08 - 13:11
Opal Moore: I don't want to get involved in
this conversation here or now.
13:12 - 13:14
Opal Moore: Um, or perhaps not at all.
13:14 - 13:20
Opal Moore: Um, so, I want to come to this idea
of censoring and self censoring.
13:21 - 13:29
Opal Moore: I'm aware, and I don't know if, if
you, you're very much involved in, in
this, uh, aspect of black literature,
but it seems to me that because black
13:29 - 13:38
Opal Moore: writers are always talking about these
kinds of painful issue, uh, issues,
the things that you're mentioning now,
that much of the work that is written
13:38 - 13:44
Opal Moore: by black authors is not being made
available to high school students, for
example, or, or on a restricted basis.
13:45 - 13:55
Opal Moore: Um, I'd like to ask you about that segment
in the Black Notebooks, um, called the
Teacher's Workshop, and where you're going
13:55 - 13:59
Opal Moore: with that, and where that work is coming
from, since it's, um, as yet unpublished.
13:59 - 14:03
Opal Moore: Where are you going with those ideas,
and what's in the Black Notebooks?
14:03 - 14:06
Toi Derricotte: Um, Uh, well, I think,
14:07 - 14:13
Toi Derricotte: um, one of the things I want to do is, um,
14:15 - 14:30
Toi Derricotte: make it possible for, for, uh, when I'm
teaching, make it possible for people
in the room to feel that, um, that, um,
14:33 - 14:44
Toi Derricotte: we're, we're not enemies, um, who
are going, the other person is
not somebody who's going to, uh,
stop you from speaking, speaking.
14:44 - 14:46
Toi Derricotte: Destroy you if you speak.
14:46 - 14:49
Toi Derricotte: Jump on you if you say the wrong thing.
14:49 - 15:01
Toi Derricotte: Um, because we're, we're, we try so
hard again to protect our images but
it stops us from developing knowledge
15:01 - 15:06
Toi Derricotte: of ourselves and the power of feeling
control of our own identities.
15:07 - 15:14
Toi Derricotte: So in some way, I think it's better
if we acknowledge to each other
Hey, okay, I'm not a perfect person.
15:14 - 15:21
Toi Derricotte: Uh, then, in some way, I have
a kind of a, uh, mobility, a
flexibility with my own material.
15:22 - 15:31
Toi Derricotte: And, uh, I think in a classroom,
you can give that sense of the
great power and excitement that
comes with expressing yourself.
15:31 - 15:33
Toi Derricotte: These things that are hard to talk about.
15:33 - 15:34
Opal Moore: Okay, I want to thank you.
15:34 - 15:35
Toi Derricotte: Oh, thank you, Opal.
15:35 - 15:37
Toi Derricotte: I've, uh, enjoyed speaking with you.
15:37 - 15:46
Opal Moore: I want to close, uh, by mentioning a poem
that you have in this book, Captivity,
the poem called The Furious Boy.
15:46 - 15:52
Opal Moore: And, um, it gives us this idea that
you have asserted that there are
people in the world, you, you quote,
15:52 - 15:56
Opal Moore: um, a philosopher who says there are
people in the world who absorb evil.
15:56 - 15:58
Opal Moore: Uh, and they don't know
that they're absorbing it.
15:59 - 16:02
Opal Moore: Uh, and in fact, eventually
it destroys them.
16:04 - 16:08
Opal Moore: I think of black women in
relation to, to the world.
16:08 - 16:11
Opal Moore: I think of black people in relation to
the world having absorbed a lot of evil.
16:12 - 16:18
Opal Moore: I think that your work will
help us to find the way that
we will not destroy ourselves.
16:19 - 16:20
Opal Moore: That we will not, in
fact, destroy ourselves.
16:20 - 16:27
Opal Moore: Be absorb, absorbing of the evil of
others and, and, uh, we'll be able
to do something wonderful instead.
16:27 - 16:28
Toi Derricotte: Oh, I hope so.
16:28 - 16:28
Toi Derricotte: Thank you.
16:28 - 16:28
Toi Derricotte: Um,
16:28 - 16:34
Opal Moore: I think, uh, also
the op, the, uh, organizers of
this conference, furious Flower.
16:34 - 16:34
Toi Derricotte: Oh, yes.
16:34 - 16:39
Opal Moore: I think that we have
had, uh, the chance to begin these
conversations about art and intent.
16:39 - 16:40
Toi Derricotte: Right.
16:40 - 16:41
Toi Derricotte: Thank you very much and hope we
16:41 - 16:41
Toi Derricotte: all go further.
16:42 - 16:42
Toi Derricotte: Thanks.
16:42 - 16:42
Toi Derricotte: Thank you all.
17:15 - 17:17
Sonia Sanchez: Isn't this
a great conference, Haki?
17:18 - 17:21
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, great in the sense that
this is called Furious Flower.
17:21 - 17:23
Sonia Sanchez: And are we not all furious flowers?
17:23 - 17:28
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, coming out of the 60s on out into
the 90s and on to the 21st century.
17:29 - 17:33
Sonia Sanchez: What do you consider very
important about this conference
here in Harrisonburg, Virginia?
17:34 - 17:38
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, I think
the first thing that it honors, uh,
you know, our, our mother, actually.
17:38 - 17:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: Yeah.
17:39 - 17:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: Gwendolyn Brooks.
17:39 - 17:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: Yeah.
17:40 - 17:42
Haki R. Madhubuti: And, uh, the work that she
has done over the years.
17:43 - 17:51
Haki R. Madhubuti: And she is so giving in her whole
persona, for this conference to
attract all these poets, I think is
the greatest testament to that giving.
17:52 - 17:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see
17:52 - 17:53
Haki R. Madhubuti: how she's affected all of us.
17:54 - 17:57
Haki R. Madhubuti: I think the second thing is that it
brings all of us back together again.
17:57 - 18:01
Haki R. Madhubuti: There's been, uh, such a void over
the last, um, um, decade actually.
18:02 - 18:12
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I can't remember another venue
where so many, um, Diverse forces
from our tradition, uh, the young, uh,
elderly, um, middle aged, and very young
18:13 - 18:13
Haki R. Madhubuti: have come
18:13 - 18:13
Haki R. Madhubuti: together.
18:14 - 18:19
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so it's kind of a, uh,
a mentoring, uh, for the two
of us with the younger poets.
18:19 - 18:24
Haki R. Madhubuti: And of course we get to, uh, to
dialogue with, uh, the poets that
kind of brought us into the fold too.
18:24 - 18:25
Haki R. Madhubuti: So it's, it's crucial.
18:25 - 18:29
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I think the third thing is
that poetry is not only alive
and well, it's a growth industry.
18:30 - 18:30
Sonia Sanchez: Ah, yes.
18:30 - 18:30
Sonia Sanchez: Yes.
18:30 - 18:35
Haki R. Madhubuti: And that, um,
uh, we have to Stay on the case.
18:36 - 18:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I think with these young
poets coming today, that that
will not be too much of a problem.
18:40 - 18:44
Sonia Sanchez: Do you think the
people here are learning something
significantly while we are here?
18:44 - 18:52
Sonia Sanchez: I mean, do you think that this is indeed,
uh, a place to come and clap and say amen
or a woman, whatever it is that you say?
18:52 - 19:01
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, is it a, is it a time you say
there's a resurrection of poetry, yes,
but is there a time for the kind of
what I call serious political poetry?
19:01 - 19:03
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, that I think Sister Gwen can do?
19:03 - 19:10
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, and others also talk about and
write about and, and say in a very real
sense, let's continue this dialogue.
19:11 - 19:12
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, is this a beginning dialogue?
19:12 - 19:13
Sonia Sanchez: Will this dialogue continue?
19:13 - 19:14
Sonia Sanchez: How can we continue it?
19:14 - 19:16
Sonia Sanchez: How can we make sure that it continues?
19:16 - 19:19
Sonia Sanchez: How can we bring people into our arena?
19:19 - 19:21
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, the way that we think about the world.
19:21 - 19:25
Sonia Sanchez: Not that they become robots like us,
but how do we think about the world?
19:25 - 19:30
Sonia Sanchez: What it really means to be black and
human at the end of the 20th century.
19:31 - 19:32
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, Sonya.
19:33 - 19:41
Haki R. Madhubuti: To listen to, uh, your reading, along
with Baraka and, uh, Harper and with Mari
last night, the poets could not, younger
19:41 - 19:44
Haki R. Madhubuti: poets could not have felt the kind of
spirit and energy that came from that.
19:45 - 19:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: One.
19:45 - 19:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: Two, often when poets are clustered
in small spaces among themselves,
you have, especially if there's
19:52 - 19:58
Haki R. Madhubuti: not this outside influence, You
have ignorant people talking about
how ignorant other people are.
19:58 - 20:00
Haki R. Madhubuti: There's no expansion.
20:00 - 20:06
Haki R. Madhubuti: Uh, for instance, uh, the first day
here, a poet gave me a copy of his
book that he had just published.
20:06 - 20:07
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I read it the other night.
20:07 - 20:09
Haki R. Madhubuti: And it was actually very poor.
20:09 - 20:11
Haki R. Madhubuti: Needed a lot of work done on it.
20:12 - 20:15
Haki R. Madhubuti: I could have told him that it
needed a lot of work the first day.
20:15 - 20:22
Haki R. Madhubuti: But after he had gone to the
workshops, Listened to the poets
read, had, uh, the, the dialogue with
many of the poets, uh, themselves.
20:23 - 20:26
Haki R. Madhubuti: I was able to look him in his eye
and said, brother, you know, you
need a lot of work on this book.
20:26 - 20:28
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, you need to go back to school.
20:28 - 20:29
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, wherever it may be and work.
20:30 - 20:31
Haki R. Madhubuti: So I think that, that is coming.
20:31 - 20:35
Haki R. Madhubuti: Now the political side, it takes
more than a conference like this.
20:35 - 20:41
Haki R. Madhubuti: It takes, uh, in many cases, uh, trial and
error by getting in the communities which
we are a part of and actually working
20:41 - 20:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: and getting slapped a couple of times
and recognizing everything is not fair.
20:45 - 20:46
Haki R. Madhubuti: We need to be black.
20:46 - 20:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: in this world, this, you know,
white supremacist world, most
certainly in the United States,
is, in many cases, a battle.
20:52 - 20:53
Haki R. Madhubuti: It's a fight all the time.
20:54 - 20:55
Haki R. Madhubuti: And you and I know that.
20:55 - 20:56
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, from sunup to sundown.
20:56 - 20:57
Sonia Sanchez: We
20:57 - 20:57
Sonia Sanchez: have the scars.
20:57 - 20:58
Haki R. Madhubuti: That's right.
20:58 - 21:02
Haki R. Madhubuti: But on the other side, we not only have
the scars, we have the, the triumphs too.
21:02 - 21:02
Sonia Sanchez: Ah.
21:03 - 21:09
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, because
we've not only been able to quote
unquote succeed at what we do, we've
been able to make the success human.
21:10 - 21:10
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see,
21:10 - 21:16
Haki R. Madhubuti: where, where essentially we are within
this community, we are part of this
community, we're not detached from
21:16 - 21:20
Haki R. Madhubuti: this community, we're very, you know,
very, and it's an enduing community.
21:20 - 21:25
Haki R. Madhubuti: Um, in, in your work and most
certainly, uh, in my work,
which we both learned from Gwen,
21:26 - 21:26
Haki R. Madhubuti: that in
21:26 - 21:30
Haki R. Madhubuti: order to stay anchored in that community,
we've got to be there every day.
21:30 - 21:38
Haki R. Madhubuti: It's not like passing through, like we
got these pass through leaders, you know,
see, that um, but the whole political
side of it only comes with activity.
21:39 - 21:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, all too often, what writers
learn in the academy is that you just
find some nice quiet place and you write.
21:46 - 21:53
Haki R. Madhubuti: Now, obviously, the content does not
begin to engage the real world unless you
are engaged in the real world, you see.
21:53 - 21:56
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so the poets will have
to essentially get back out
there and deal with the world.
21:56 - 21:57
Sonia Sanchez: The
21:57 - 22:09
Sonia Sanchez: joy of, of watching Sister Gwendolyn
Brooke, um, Miss Brooks talk and
read and joy of also listening
to what she say, what she says today.
22:09 - 22:14
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, she, she goes places where
many poets are not going anymore.
22:14 - 22:18
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, and she brings to us, uh, a community.
22:18 - 22:19
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, our community.
22:19 - 22:21
Sonia Sanchez: And she says, look at it.
22:21 - 22:25
Sonia Sanchez: You know, look at this community,
uh, learn from it, uh, understand it.
22:25 - 22:26
Sonia Sanchez: But I still have hope.
22:27 - 22:32
Sonia Sanchez: An optimism about this community
that I live in, that I reside
in, that I am a part of.
22:32 - 22:34
Sonia Sanchez: Um, what do you think then?
22:34 - 22:39
Sonia Sanchez: Do you think then, when one
hears her, are we moving towards
perhaps a third renaissance?
22:40 - 22:43
Sonia Sanchez: Um, we've had the first renaissance
called the Harlem Renaissance.
22:44 - 22:49
Sonia Sanchez: Or, um, we've had the second renaissance
called also the Black Arts Movement.
22:49 - 22:52
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, we have people who write about this
and don't know what they're talking about.
22:53 - 22:56
Sonia Sanchez: Um, we have a third
renaissance coming also too.
22:56 - 23:03
Sonia Sanchez: And I'd like to think about this third
renaissance as one where it will be
Include a lot of people, you know, a
23:03 - 23:12
Sonia Sanchez: lot of us perhaps who sometimes will be,
uh, secreted in a university someplace
and sending work out for us all to see.
23:12 - 23:19
Sonia Sanchez: And those who will also secret
themselves also in a community and
will then give us third world press.
23:19 - 23:27
Sonia Sanchez: You know, and all the things that we
do, but you and I understand that we
have sent out into this world, many of
our own students, you know, who have a
23:27 - 23:34
Sonia Sanchez: vision, and I would hope that perhaps
we can look at each other in this third
renaissance and say, ah, yes, I like this.
23:34 - 23:39
Sonia Sanchez: I will make sure this book that you
sent us from this little cubby hole
some place, we'll get to this brother,
23:39 - 23:47
Sonia Sanchez: this sister, uh, be they black, Chicano,
whatever they be, you know, uh, Puerto
Rican, you know, read that and at some
23:47 - 23:54
Sonia Sanchez: point let them also explode in some
flowery fashion there in Harlem, you know,
there in Chicago, you know, there in L.
23:54 - 24:04
Sonia Sanchez: A. Um, I guess what I'm saying that
this third renaissance perhaps will
make us move in a very human fashion
and we will perhaps extend our arms.
24:04 - 24:13
Sonia Sanchez: to everybody and say, come, taste this,
you know, because we have survived,
we have stayed human, and we can now
extend our, you know, humanity out to
24:13 - 24:21
Sonia Sanchez: a lot of you who perhaps will never
understand what we've done for the
last 30 years, but okay, but you will
reap the benefits from that, you see.
24:21 - 24:23
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, yes,
24:23 - 24:27
Haki R. Madhubuti: and I think, I think that this
third renaissance exists primarily
because of poets like yourself, and
24:27 - 24:32
Haki R. Madhubuti: you look at the poets that come out
of the 60s, many of us went into
the academy in order to stay alive.
24:32 - 24:32
Sonia Sanchez: Mm hmm.
24:33 - 24:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: Students cannot
come through my class without
reading your work and the great work
of the other great black writers.
24:39 - 24:40
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, you just cannot
come through this class.
24:41 - 24:44
Haki R. Madhubuti: And therefore, I and your work
will make an impression upon them.
24:45 - 24:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: You
24:45 - 24:49
Haki R. Madhubuti: ee, writers and as well as those who
do not want to write, especially, too.
24:50 - 24:51
Haki R. Madhubuti: You got this whole twenty year cycle.
24:52 - 24:56
Haki R. Madhubuti: Okay, so you have these young rappers
out here, many going in the wrong
direction, but you got something
going in the right direction.
24:56 - 24:59
Haki R. Madhubuti: I think that's a result
of this, this tradition.
24:59 - 25:02
Haki R. Madhubuti: The next is We have children in college.
25:03 - 25:03
Haki R. Madhubuti: Alright.
25:03 - 25:06
Haki R. Madhubuti: My sons and my daughters,
uh, will not have to.
25:07 - 25:10
Haki R. Madhubuti: They matured at a much
greater pace than we.
25:10 - 25:10
Haki R. Madhubuti: Okay.
25:10 - 25:13
Haki R. Madhubuti: I had to find Richard
Wright at 13 years old.
25:13 - 25:17
Haki R. Madhubuti: Uh, my sons and daughters were reading,
you know, listening to Richard Wright
and Sterling Brown and, and Gwendolyn
25:17 - 25:22
Haki R. Madhubuti: Brooks and Sonia Sanchez and Mari
Evans when they were 3, 4, 5 years old.
25:22 - 25:24
Haki R. Madhubuti: They came through an African
Center type education.
25:24 - 25:28
Haki R. Madhubuti: Alright, so what we represent, we
represent the institutionalization
of what we write about.
25:29 - 25:32
Haki R. Madhubuti: Alright, and so therefore I
think this third renaissance
will be a lasting renaissance.
25:32 - 25:35
Haki R. Madhubuti: And it will be more inclusive
and it will be much larger too.
25:35 - 25:36
Haki R. Madhubuti: Absolutely.
25:37 - 25:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: And Gwen has traveled all,
through all three of them.
25:40 - 25:40
Sonia Sanchez: Ah, yes.
25:40 - 25:42
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see,
so she's a, she's a connector.
25:42 - 25:48
Sonia Sanchez: And I, and that's
what I wanted to say to you, ask
you to comment on the whole point
of how we try to fixate people.
25:49 - 25:55
Sonia Sanchez: You know, I watch some of the
critics who say simply that you are
and I am only a black arts poet.
25:56 - 26:02
Sonia Sanchez: And I say to people, you do realize a
poet who is alive and who is breathing
and who is continuing to write, you know.
26:02 - 26:05
Sonia Sanchez: I mean, Haki has 13, 14, 15 books.
26:05 - 26:07
Sonia Sanchez: I have 13, 14, 15 books.
26:07 - 26:09
Sonia Sanchez: It means that we have
not fixated ourselves.
26:09 - 26:11
Sonia Sanchez: For instance, look at Gwendolyn Brooks.
26:11 - 26:15
Sonia Sanchez: Sister Gwen, you know, look at all the
people who write until their last breath.
26:15 - 26:17
Sonia Sanchez: Look at Baraka, who write
until their last breath.
26:17 - 26:18
Sonia Sanchez: Mari Evans, we all write.
26:19 - 26:24
Sonia Sanchez: And so I think that at some point, one of
the things, one of the points we really
want to say at some point is that we've
26:24 - 26:30
Sonia Sanchez: got to burst through this Eurocentric
way of pigeon hole, pigeon hole, you
know, hole, you know, holing people.
26:31 - 26:34
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, and say simply, you know, we look
at it in a different kind of fashion.
26:34 - 26:37
Sonia Sanchez: You know, we are these African
people, you know, and we breathe.
26:37 - 26:40
Sonia Sanchez: You know, so therefore we
move from just one period.
26:40 - 26:44
Sonia Sanchez: We might have begun there, but by
golly, by gee, we go throughout.
26:44 - 26:46
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, we're here,
so we know we're beyond these periods.
26:46 - 26:47
Sonia Sanchez: But if you read the books
26:47 - 26:49
Haki R. Madhubuti: No, no, I
understand exactly what you're
26:49 - 26:51
Haki R. Madhubuti: saying, that, that, essentially,
that's part of the containment.
26:51 - 26:52
Sonia Sanchez: Mm hmm.
26:52 - 26:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: And
26:52 - 26:59
Haki R. Madhubuti: you find that even
now, even within our culture, you have
men and women who have been anointed to
contain, to rewrite, to be revisionists.
26:59 - 27:00
Sonia Sanchez: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
27:00 - 27:06
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so, therefore,
that's going to happen in the books
coming out that we've been revised out of.
27:07 - 27:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: Our tradition.
27:08 - 27:10
Haki R. Madhubuti: Pigeonholed into, say,
just the decade of the 60s.
27:11 - 27:19
Haki R. Madhubuti: Now realizing that essentially a
good many of those brothers and
sisters, yourself, Mari, Baraka,
myself, and others, have continued on.
27:19 - 27:20
Haki R. Madhubuti: Building, you see.
27:20 - 27:27
Haki R. Madhubuti: But, we will not get the, you know,
the large positions and the large
grants to do that same kind of writing.
27:28 - 27:31
Haki R. Madhubuti: And access to the same
type of media, you see.
27:31 - 27:32
Haki R. Madhubuti: So, we have to continue to battle.
27:32 - 27:34
Haki R. Madhubuti: But it's always a fight,
it's always a struggle.
27:35 - 27:35
Haki R. Madhubuti: And
27:35 - 27:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: what Gwendolyn Brooks has taught
me more than anything else is that,
just go about and do your work.
27:39 - 27:39
Sonia Sanchez: Exactly.
27:39 - 27:41
Haki R. Madhubuti: It's gonna
be a struggle all the time.
27:41 - 27:47
Sonia Sanchez: What do you forecast for
For us, if you want to do that, I don't
know about the time, as, as a people.
27:48 - 27:56
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, for us as writers, uh, are there
different ways that we should explore
things, different avenues we should
turn, uh, different places we should go?
27:56 - 27:57
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, what do you think about this?
27:58 - 28:02
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, I think
that we're living in difficult
times, but at the same time, we're
living in very promising times.
28:02 - 28:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: You remember back in the 60s, there
were approximately eight black
bookstores across the entire country.
28:08 - 28:10
Haki R. Madhubuti: At the most, there were about
six or seven black bookstores.
28:12 - 28:19
Haki R. Madhubuti: As we speak today, there are about
350 black book stores or people
selling books out of their cars, out
of their homes, out of their cellars.
28:19 - 28:19
Sonia Sanchez: I
28:19 - 28:19
Sonia Sanchez: love
28:19 - 28:20
Sonia Sanchez: that.
28:20 - 28:23
Haki R. Madhubuti: And there are
at least 70, 75 black publishers.
28:23 - 28:26
Haki R. Madhubuti: In fact, there's a national
publishers organization, National
Association of Black Book Publishers.
28:27 - 28:28
Haki R. Madhubuti: So there has been development.
28:29 - 28:32
Haki R. Madhubuti: We've got the Gwendolyn Brooks
Center at Chicago State.
28:32 - 28:36
Haki R. Madhubuti: And there are other African and Africana
studies departments all over the country.
28:37 - 28:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: Now, so, I see that as we attach ourselves
to these departments, to this, to this
movement, that things can only get better.
28:46 - 28:47
Haki R. Madhubuti: Now, this is the problem.
28:48 - 28:50
Haki R. Madhubuti: The more politicized people become,
the more dangerous they become.
28:51 - 28:53
Haki R. Madhubuti: And that has happened with,
in many cases, with the poets.
28:53 - 28:59
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so, where we don't see your work,
or my work, or Baraka's work, or Mari
Evans work, or Kalamu ya Salaam's work.
29:00 - 29:02
Haki R. Madhubuti: Uh, in the major venues in the country.
29:02 - 29:02
Haki R. Madhubuti: Why?
29:02 - 29:06
Haki R. Madhubuti: Because essentially, we are
still fighting, in many cases,
the same kind of battle.
29:06 - 29:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: And that's why we had to
create our own venues.
29:08 - 29:15
Haki R. Madhubuti: But by doing that, we touch
this new generation at a level
that other people can't touch.
29:15 - 29:15
Haki R. Madhubuti: Why?
29:15 - 29:18
Haki R. Madhubuti: Because they understand the
importance of building what we call
independent black institutions.
29:19 - 29:24
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, whether there are schools,
whether there are health institutions,
or whether there are magazines
29:24 - 29:27
Haki R. Madhubuti: or publishing companies, that
that's what we have to be about.
29:27 - 29:28
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so I'm encouraged.
29:28 - 29:31
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, I feel very good
about what will happen.
29:32 - 29:34
Haki R. Madhubuti: Primarily because I see my own children.
29:34 - 29:35
Haki R. Madhubuti: I see your children.
29:36 - 29:40
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I see the children of the people
that come through our school in Chicago.
29:40 - 29:44
Haki R. Madhubuti: Is that there, there, there is this,
this, this, this new centering.
29:44 - 29:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see what I'm saying?
29:45 - 29:49
Haki R. Madhubuti: That what, what, what black poetry
and what African Center Studies does
is centers us in ourselves, therefore
29:49 - 29:56
Haki R. Madhubuti: securing us in ourselves, which allows
us to move out into anybody's world
and not essentially be co optive.
29:56 - 29:56
Sonia Sanchez: Right.
29:56 - 30:04
Haki R. Madhubuti: Okay, and so what
the poetry does, And what it, uh, did
for me has essentially said, look, we
don't have to apologize to anybody.
30:05 - 30:11
Haki R. Madhubuti: And what the 60s did, which was
the most important and a decisive
decade, was said that we don't have
to stand in line behind anybody.
30:11 - 30:12
Haki R. Madhubuti: We're going to set the agenda now.
30:13 - 30:19
Haki R. Madhubuti: And the agenda for any people
who are in control of their own
cultural imperatives, that first and
foremost, they start with themselves.
30:19 - 30:25
Haki R. Madhubuti: And when they start with themselves and
are comfortable there and understand
that we not only brought civilization
30:25 - 30:29
Haki R. Madhubuti: to the world, we continue to spread
that which is good, just, right.
30:30 - 30:33
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, and when we do that, we
don't have to apologize to anybody.
30:33 - 30:34
Haki R. Madhubuti: We just keep on stepping.
30:34 - 30:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: And what will happen, the people
that understand the work that
we're trying to do, will say yes.
30:40 - 30:40
Haki R. Madhubuti: That's good work.
30:41 - 30:43
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, and that's what happened
here with Gwendolyn Brooks.
30:44 - 30:48
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see, twenty five years ago Gwendolyn
Brooks did not have an audience like this.
30:48 - 30:48
Haki R. Madhubuti: And we know this.
30:48 - 30:49
Haki R. Madhubuti: Oh
30:49 - 30:49
Sonia Sanchez: yeah.
30:49 - 30:54
Haki R. Madhubuti: Twenty five
years ago, Gwendolyn Brooks
was scuffling just to pay rent.
30:54 - 30:54
Sonia Sanchez: Pay rent.
30:55 - 30:55
Haki R. Madhubuti: Okay?
30:55 - 30:58
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so we find now that
she stayed on the track.
30:58 - 30:59
Haki R. Madhubuti: But you know what?
30:59 - 31:01
Haki R. Madhubuti: By staying on the track, she created us.
31:01 - 31:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so by, and in creating us, we became,
uh, her students, and therefore every time
we read, we mentioned Gwendolyn Brooks.
31:08 - 31:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: Right.
31:09 - 31:09
Haki R. Madhubuti: You see what I'm saying?
31:09 - 31:12
Haki R. Madhubuti: So therefore, her audience continued
to grow, continued to grow.
31:12 - 31:13
Haki R. Madhubuti: Why?
31:13 - 31:14
Haki R. Madhubuti: Because she did not back up.
31:14 - 31:20
Haki R. Madhubuti: She ceased to be, she was not
contradictory, and she's selfless,
selfless in terms of her, her giving.
31:20 - 31:24
Haki R. Madhubuti: And she's one of the greatest writers
in the world, and I will just say this.
31:24 - 31:25
Sonia Sanchez: Mm, say it.
31:25 - 31:29
Haki R. Madhubuti: When you talk
about a hundred, I say that, say
if you talk world-wide writers,
say a hundred writers in the world,
31:29 - 31:30
Haki R. Madhubuti: Gwendolyn
31:30 - 31:31
Haki R. Madhubuti: Brooks would be among the top ten.
31:31 - 31:32
Sonia Sanchez: Mm hmm.
31:32 - 31:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I felt That in
terms of major prizes, Gwen should always
have been up there in the mix, you see.
31:39 - 31:44
Haki R. Madhubuti: So if a, if a, if a Nobel Prize
comes this way again, it's
got to go to Gwendolyn Brooks.
31:45 - 31:46
Haki R. Madhubuti: It, it, it must go to Gwendolyn Brooks.
31:46 - 31:47
Haki R. Madhubuti: That's where she is.
31:47 - 31:50
Haki R. Madhubuti: She is our, we're talking
about in terms of poetry, we're
talking about Gwendolyn Brooks.
31:50 - 31:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: In terms of fiction, you're
talking about Toni Morrison.
31:53 - 31:53
Haki R. Madhubuti: Okay?
31:53 - 31:55
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so, you know, that's,
that's where we are.
31:55 - 31:59
Haki R. Madhubuti: So, this weekend has been
most certainly inspirational.
32:00 - 32:07
Haki R. Madhubuti: It has been a weekend that Has kind
of renewed me in many ways in terms of
seeing these young people just glamoring.
32:07 - 32:08
Haki R. Madhubuti: This is what, this is
what happened in the 60s.
32:08 - 32:09
Haki R. Madhubuti: Exactly.
32:09 - 32:11
Haki R. Madhubuti: Same type of spirit, same type of thrust.
32:12 - 32:12
Haki R. Madhubuti: So optimistic.
32:12 - 32:13
Sonia Sanchez: Well,
32:13 - 32:22
Sonia Sanchez: her spirit is one that certainly soars
and her spirit also moves within us and
makes us understand at some particular
point, too, that we have to continue.
32:22 - 32:22
Sonia Sanchez: Right.
32:22 - 32:23
Sonia Sanchez: That the struggle continues.
32:23 - 32:25
Sonia Sanchez: Um, and I think that you are blessed.
32:26 - 32:34
Sonia Sanchez: All of you in Chicago, to be there so
close to her, you know, to see her and to
know that she is there, uh, you know, for
32:34 - 32:39
Sonia Sanchez: you and for the entire city, to the entire
city and the entire state is also blessed.
32:39 - 32:46
Sonia Sanchez: But I also want to say the entire
country is blessed because what
she says, the way any poet should
say, that this is really the truth.
32:46 - 32:47
Sonia Sanchez: This is really what I see.
32:48 - 32:53
Sonia Sanchez: Now, I might not even, you might not
like what I say, and it might be a
little slap, and she slaps us all.
32:53 - 32:55
Sonia Sanchez: You know, you included, me included.
32:55 - 32:59
Sonia Sanchez: I mean, you know, we've all had to back
up and say, excuse me, you know, and
turn right around and come back and
32:59 - 33:03
Sonia Sanchez: say, please forgive me, you know, I
didn't know what I was saying, whatever.
33:03 - 33:08
Sonia Sanchez: And the point is simply, but
you can do that, and she is so
gracious, so she says, Welcome back.
33:08 - 33:09
Sonia Sanchez: Welcome back.
33:09 - 33:15
Sonia Sanchez: And so here, being here at a
conference that says, that uses a
line, uh, from one of her poems, you
33:15 - 33:21
Sonia Sanchez: know, in terms of Furious Flower,
uh, it makes you understand that
you can use such language, you know.
33:21 - 33:27
Sonia Sanchez: I mean, I'm always stricken, and I love
that word, stricken, by the way, the,
uh, the language of Gwendolyn Brooks.
33:27 - 33:34
Sonia Sanchez: You know, uh, to put together words, to
juxtapose words next to each other and
make us accept them, furious flower,
33:34 - 33:34
Haki R. Madhubuti: you know?
33:34 - 33:36
Haki R. Madhubuti: Or, you know, say the river
turns and turns the river.
33:36 - 33:38
Sonia Sanchez: And turn
the river, you know.
33:38 - 33:38
Haki R. Madhubuti: And I think that
33:38 - 33:41
Haki R. Madhubuti: has been, for me, the line
that has kept me going.
33:41 - 33:45
Haki R. Madhubuti: Because, essentially, it says
that there's no obstacle out here
that we cannot deal with, you see?
33:46 - 33:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: And what Gwen, what many people
don't understand about Gwendolyn
Brooks is that she's not only a
writer, poet, But she's an activist.
33:52 - 33:52
Sonia Sanchez: Oh, yes.
33:52 - 33:53
Sonia Sanchez: And they never put
activists there, you know.
33:53 - 33:54
Sonia Sanchez: They never put activists there.
33:54 - 33:54
Sonia Sanchez: They'll
33:54 - 33:55
Sonia Sanchez: call you an activist.
33:55 - 33:56
Haki R. Madhubuti: Right.
33:56 - 33:57
Sonia Sanchez: And they'll
call me an activist, you know.
33:57 - 33:57
Sonia Sanchez: Right.
33:57 - 33:57
Sonia Sanchez: That's right.
33:57 - 34:01
Sonia Sanchez: But the point is that, uh, she,
she is an activist, you see.
34:02 - 34:03
Haki R. Madhubuti: And for life.
34:03 - 34:04
Haki R. Madhubuti: So she's 77 years old.
34:04 - 34:04
Haki R. Madhubuti: Yeah.
34:04 - 34:07
Haki R. Madhubuti: So, so, so, so the collective poems
come out when she's 80 years old.
34:07 - 34:09
Haki R. Madhubuti: So we know we got at
least another three years.
34:09 - 34:09
Sonia Sanchez: Yes.
34:09 - 34:10
Sonia Sanchez: Ha, ha.
34:10 - 34:12
Haki R. Madhubuti: But you know, it's,
it's going to be longer than that.
34:12 - 34:12
Sonia Sanchez: Yes.
34:12 - 34:18
Haki R. Madhubuti: But as an activist,
she, she shares this passion for justice.
34:18 - 34:22
Haki R. Madhubuti: And like, you know, I try to say in
the poem, her religion is kindness.
34:22 - 34:23
Sonia Sanchez: Yes.
34:23 - 34:27
Haki R. Madhubuti: It's not, you
know, sitting down in these pews and
these churches and on their knees.
34:27 - 34:28
Haki R. Madhubuti: It's just being kind.
34:29 - 34:29
Sonia Sanchez: Mm hmm.
34:29 - 34:34
Haki R. Madhubuti: And if there's
any order in the world, if there's
any, uh, uh, uh, karma in the world,
34:34 - 34:34
Sonia Sanchez: Mm
34:35 - 34:35
Sonia Sanchez: hmm.
34:35 - 34:37
Haki R. Madhubuti: then this
kindness will come back triple fold.
34:37 - 34:38
Sonia Sanchez: Oh, yes.
34:38 - 34:38
Sonia Sanchez: And
34:38 - 34:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: what this
conference shows is that it has.
34:40 - 34:49
Sonia Sanchez: And the conference that
you run also every year in October in
Chicago, when we come out there, uh,
not only to, to, to, to pay homage to
34:49 - 35:02
Sonia Sanchez: Miss Brooks, but also to say simply,
um, how do you finally celebrate people
who, dedicate their lives to a people,
uh, and by extension to a country.
35:02 - 35:06
Sonia Sanchez: Uh, and I think what you
have done is very important.
35:06 - 35:11
Sonia Sanchez: You have said simply, you know,
we give honor and we praise the
people when they are alive, you see.
35:11 - 35:20
Sonia Sanchez: And this chair there at Chicago State
University, uh, this coming together,
not just to give some kind of You
know, like, oh, we love you, love you.
35:20 - 35:23
Sonia Sanchez: But to say simply, we're
coming out to work, Gwen.
35:23 - 35:24
Sonia Sanchez: We're rolling up our sleeves.
35:24 - 35:25
Sonia Sanchez: We're doing workshops, you know.
35:25 - 35:27
Sonia Sanchez: We're gonna do the work
because you have done the work.
35:28 - 35:30
Sonia Sanchez: And just a final word about Miss Brooks.
35:30 - 35:33
Sonia Sanchez: Um, anything you might want
to say now as we wind down?
35:33 - 35:39
Haki R. Madhubuti: Well, only
that, uh, it's, it's just, I
think what sons do for mothers.
35:39 - 35:46
Haki R. Madhubuti: And that if we are to honor our
mothers, then we do one thing.
35:46 - 35:46
Haki R. Madhubuti: One.
35:47 - 35:52
Haki R. Madhubuti: We try to emulate them, emulate
them, try to be an example to them.
35:52 - 36:03
Haki R. Madhubuti: And two, I think with this conference,
which you've become kind of a fixture
also, so it's, it's, it's an honor to,
you know, Sonya Sanchez too, is that
36:05 - 36:14
Haki R. Madhubuti: it is important for us to realize
that it is, we have to say thank
you while someone is alive, rather
after he or she has left us.
36:14 - 36:16
Haki R. Madhubuti: And then we say, Oh, well,
we should have done that.
36:17 - 36:24
Haki R. Madhubuti: And so what I've learned in my short
tenure on this earth is that what sons
do and what daughters do is that we not
36:24 - 36:31
Haki R. Madhubuti: only say, Thank you, but we bask in the
wisdom of our mothers and fathers and
try to move to the next level ourselves.
36:31 - 36:36
Sonia Sanchez: And what brothers and
sisters do is that they touch and say,
Keep up the good work and stay strong.
36:36 - 36:36
Sonia Sanchez: Thank you.
37:11 - 37:12
Eleanor W. Traylor: Naomi Long Madgett.
37:13 - 37:14
Eleanor W. Traylor: Poet.
37:15 - 37:16
Eleanor W. Traylor: Professor.
37:17 - 37:17
Eleanor W. Traylor: Editor.
37:18 - 37:19
Eleanor W. Traylor: Publisher.
37:19 - 37:21
Eleanor W. Traylor: Phenomenal woman.
37:21 - 37:22
Eleanor W. Traylor: Beautiful.
37:23 - 37:33
Eleanor W. Traylor: Perhaps the source of
contemporary black women's poetry.
37:33 - 37:44
Eleanor W. Traylor: Perhaps the closest likeness, and this
is a cliché, to a kind of resurgent voice
37:46 - 37:53
Eleanor W. Traylor: of Phyllis Wheatley, in our time,
I don't know why I say that.
37:53 - 37:56
Eleanor W. Traylor: Comparisons are odious.
37:57 - 38:10
Eleanor W. Traylor: But it strikes me as wondrous
that before you were 12 years
old, you could count 100.
38:11 - 38:14
Eleanor W. Traylor: published poems.
38:14 - 38:16
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Not one hundred
38:17 - 38:21
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I had counted one hundred
poems completed by that time.
38:22 - 38:30
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But you have a point in the comparison
with me and Phyllis Wheatley because
I was seventeen when my first book
38:30 - 38:33
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: was published and she was seventeen
when her first poem was published.
38:34 - 38:37
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So that likeness has been made before.
38:37 - 38:40
Eleanor W. Traylor: That likeness
has been made before and you have.
38:41 - 38:51
Eleanor W. Traylor: yourself developed something
of it in your poem, To Phyllis,
to which we shall return.
38:52 - 39:02
Eleanor W. Traylor: There are many, many distinctions
about you, but you are the first poet
that I have ever heard or read to make
39:02 - 39:10
Eleanor W. Traylor: reference to having known and been
inspired by the Reverend Charles Albert.
39:10 - 39:12
Eleanor W. Traylor: Tindley in Philadelphia.
39:12 - 39:18
Eleanor W. Traylor: Could you tell us something about
that whole Philadelphia place?
39:18 - 39:22
Eleanor W. Traylor: Because it is a place
so resonant and so rich.
39:22 - 39:26
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Well, he was from Philadelphia,
but I was living in New Jersey.
39:26 - 39:34
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And my father was a graduate student
at Drew University at the time and
brought Reverend Tindley to East Orange.
39:35 - 39:37
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: to speak at the local high school.
39:38 - 39:41
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I'm, I was about
five years old, I think.
39:42 - 39:50
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And he brought the man to our house
and said, this is the man who wrote,
and he started naming familiar
hymns that we sang in church.
39:50 - 40:00
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I was just so impressed, I remembered
that to the point that when Martin
Luther King died and his last words
40:00 - 40:09
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: were being broadcast, He quoted from
one of those hymns by Tindley, and it
brought back that, that remembrance.
40:09 - 40:19
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I had occasion to visit the church
where he was a pastor in Philadelphia,
and found a portrait of him there,
and I was very happy to do that.
40:19 - 40:23
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I remembered his bearing, and
his height, and his straightness.
40:23 - 40:27
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But it was not too long, too many
years after that, that he died.
40:27 - 40:30
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I was so happy that I
had a chance to meet him.
40:31 - 40:43
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's just interesting
that, um, many songs or hymns or gospels
that we thought were oral traditional
were written by Charles Albert Tindley.
40:44 - 40:56
Eleanor W. Traylor: And I just am curious about your
own relation or what you feel your
relation to be to any oral tradition.
40:56 - 40:59
Eleanor W. Traylor: I know you grew up in an
extraordinarily rich family.
41:00 - 41:05
Eleanor W. Traylor: Linguistic, home, and community, and
your father was such an amazing man.
41:05 - 41:06
Eleanor W. Traylor: Did you travel with him at all?
41:07 - 41:12
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Not as
a child, except summer vacations to
my grandparents house in Richmond.
41:13 - 41:20
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Uh, when he went to Europe and, uh,
the Middle East and North Africa
in 1934, I was only 11 years old.
41:21 - 41:25
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So I didn't get a chance to do
that kind of traveling with him.
41:25 - 41:29
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But it was a rare kind of background.
41:29 - 41:34
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: We were poor during the Depression,
but we really didn't know it
because we were rich culturally.
41:36 - 41:39
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I feel very fortunate in that regard.
41:39 - 41:47
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: If I had not been surrounded
by books, I don't think I would
have been turned on to poetry.
41:48 - 41:52
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Perhaps at all, or at
least not as soon as I was.
41:52 - 41:58
Eleanor W. Traylor: But all your
life, you say, and, and, and one, and
one, uh, sees immediately that there
41:58 - 42:03
Eleanor W. Traylor: was never a time in your conscious
life when you weren't writing poetry.
42:03 - 42:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: That's true.
42:04 - 42:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And
42:04 - 42:07
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: then my father was a
very race conscious man.
42:08 - 42:16
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So that, I still have on one of
my bookcases at home the bust of
Dunbar that he had on his bookcase.
42:16 - 42:25
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And, uh, during the Depression, he taught
one of the government sponsored adult
education classes in Negro literature.
42:26 - 42:34
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I still have the paper,
mimeographed anthology that was
put together by Sterling Brown and
Countee Cullen and several others.
42:34 - 42:35
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: That he used.
42:35 - 42:36
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Yes.
42:36 - 42:46
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I also had Robert Kerlin's book, or he
had, and I have now, Negro Poets and Their
Poems, which came out the year I was born.
42:46 - 42:46
Eleanor W. Traylor: That's right.
42:47 - 42:56
Eleanor W. Traylor: And then, uh, in one of the most
significant anthologies that,
created by Langston Hughes and
Anna Vontoms, There You Were.
42:56 - 42:59
Eleanor W. Traylor: You must have been,
probably at the time, a
42:59 - 42:59
Eleanor W. Traylor: child.
42:59 - 43:02
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Well, I was
a young, no, I was a young adult then.
43:03 - 43:08
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But, uh, I had met Langston Hughes
when I was about 15 in St. Louis.
43:09 - 43:11
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And he talked to me and encouraged me.
43:11 - 43:16
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And the next time I saw him, I was
a student at Virginia State College.
43:16 - 43:19
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I met with him during
the day before his reading.
43:20 - 43:28
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: with a literary group on campus and
very timidly handed him a notebook of
my poems and said, Please, Mr. Hughes,
43:28 - 43:32
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: if you have time, would you read one or
two of those and tell me what you think?
43:32 - 43:36
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So he took them and said he would give
the notebook back to me after the reading.
43:37 - 43:41
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Well, when he went to the podium that
night, I noticed he had my book with him.
43:42 - 43:43
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But I didn't think anything of that.
43:44 - 43:48
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But during the course of his reading,
he started reading some poems of mine.
43:49 - 43:53
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And gave me this tremendous build up
and my head got this big, you know.
43:53 - 44:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But then he talked, he went through
the whole notebook and penciled in
comments, which I immediately covered
over with scotch tape to reserve them.
44:04 - 44:09
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But I had that kind of, uh,
of exposure to County Cullen.
44:09 - 44:12
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I visited his home the
year before he died.
44:13 - 44:18
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Uh, I still have a 1940 letter
that, uh, Sterling Brown wrote me.
44:19 - 44:24
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So, we had that kind of exposure
that was really rare in those times.
44:24 - 44:26
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And that kind of black awareness.
44:26 - 44:26
Eleanor W. Traylor: Yes.
44:28 - 44:35
Eleanor W. Traylor: Of, of Langston Hughes generosity
and encouragement, Margaret
Walker reports a similar story.
44:35 - 44:35
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Yes.
44:35 - 44:44
Eleanor W. Traylor: But you were
published before Margaret Walker,
Alexander, and Gwendolyn Brooke?
44:45 - 44:45
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Yes.
44:47 - 44:47
Eleanor W. Traylor: You were the
44:48 - 44:49
Eleanor W. Traylor: touchstone, the kickoff.
44:50 - 44:53
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I
doubt if many people were aware
of that little book, though.
44:54 - 45:00
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: The, uh, small company in, in New
York quickly went bankrupt after
that and went out of business.
45:00 - 45:07
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And, uh, every now and then, though,
someone turns up a copy of it In
a library or a used bookstore?
45:08 - 45:20
Eleanor W. Traylor: Well, in remembrances
of Spring, this beautiful new collection
of your early poetry, some of these
45:20 - 45:30
Eleanor W. Traylor: poems published when you were not 18,
you were 17, you were Phyllis Wheatley's
age when she first began to publish.
45:31 - 45:31
Eleanor W. Traylor: Uh.
45:32 - 45:41
Eleanor W. Traylor: Absolutely, poignantly, uh, prescient
45:43 - 45:45
Eleanor W. Traylor: in your reach.
45:45 - 45:45
Eleanor W. Traylor: I mean,
45:48 - 45:54
Eleanor W. Traylor: I am shuddering in my heart for
soon it will be spring, and spring
does not mean lilacs anymore.
45:54 - 46:01
Eleanor W. Traylor: For a 17 year old, I mean, I must have
been 99 before I came to that conclusion.
46:01 - 46:03
Eleanor W. Traylor: And, uh, Farewell, March.
46:03 - 46:05
Eleanor W. Traylor: I shall not miss you when you're gone.
46:05 - 46:11
Eleanor W. Traylor: There is one about, I shall not
know these tall joys anymore.
46:11 - 46:18
Eleanor W. Traylor: Well, of course, you were to
know absolutely gigantic, uh,
joys and to climb huge mountains
since then, but I mean that.
46:19 - 46:23
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But the thing about that, when
I was young, I wrote at 16.
46:23 - 46:26
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Can you imagine at 16,
writing when I was young?
46:26 - 46:27
Eleanor W. Traylor: I know.
46:27 - 46:27
Eleanor W. Traylor: That
46:28 - 46:29
Eleanor W. Traylor: is just exactly right.
46:29 - 46:31
Eleanor W. Traylor: That is what I'm getting at, I think.
46:31 - 46:33
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's just incredible.
46:33 - 46:34
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I, um,
46:41 - 46:53
Eleanor W. Traylor: The, the idea of
the corpus of poetry that you have
produced, uh, yourself is, uh, a wonderful
46:55 - 46:57
Eleanor W. Traylor: monument to poetry.
46:58 - 47:03
Eleanor W. Traylor: But you have not only written
yourself, you've brought so
many other poets to publication.
47:03 - 47:11
Eleanor W. Traylor: Can you say just a little bit about how
you started in publishing and in editing?
47:12 - 47:19
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: In 1972,
I was ready for my third book of
poetry, Pink Ladies in the Afternoon.
47:19 - 47:24
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And you know the mood of the
times, uh, in black poetry then.
47:25 - 47:28
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And my poems did not fit the mold.
47:28 - 47:33
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So I was having trouble getting a
publisher, either black or white.
47:34 - 47:43
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And three friends who were interested
in my work formed Lotus Press for
the purpose of publishing that book.
47:44 - 47:52
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I assumed that they would go on
and publish something else, but that
was not the case, and they weren't
doing very much to promote that book.
47:52 - 48:00
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: So two years later, I took over
the press and immediately started
publishing other people's poetry.
48:00 - 48:01
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I remember meeting Mae Miller.
48:02 - 48:13
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: At Southern University at a conference,
and we hit it off very well, and, uh,
I thought, well, I'll publish her book
of poetry because I liked her work.
48:14 - 48:16
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And, uh, it went on from there.
48:17 - 48:27
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I did a set of poster poems by 20
contemporary black poems as a way of
answering a white teacher who was a
48:27 - 48:32
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: colleague who said about black poetry,
if you've read one, you've read them all.
48:33 - 48:42
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And I wanted to indicate in a way that
teachers could use on the bulletin
board, uh, something that showed the
48:42 - 48:48
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: variety and richness of black poetry, the
variety both in style and subject matter.
48:49 - 48:56
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And then it went on from there,
to the point that eventually I
was responsible for publishing.
48:56 - 49:06
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: 76 titles, uh, and would you believe
it, I think I have counted 15 poets
at this conference who had at least
49:06 - 49:10
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: one poem, uh, one book published
by Lotus Press, and I'm very,
49:10 - 49:11
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: very pleased.
49:11 - 49:22
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's incredible that
you, the, the press itself marks a history
all the way from, uh, May Miller to Haki
49:22 - 49:24
Eleanor W. Traylor: Madhubuti and Ethelbert Miller.
49:24 - 49:27
Eleanor W. Traylor: So I mean, it encompasses
about, what, three, four?
49:29 - 49:29
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: One
49:29 - 49:37
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: thing I was very determined to
do with the press was to give the
poets Their sense of independence.
49:37 - 49:43
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I was determined not to say
it has to be this kind of
poetry or that kind of poetry.
49:43 - 49:48
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I will not publish it if it is very,
very, very political and angry.
49:48 - 49:51
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Uh, I will not publish it
unless it is very, very black.
49:52 - 49:53
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I would not do that.
49:53 - 50:02
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And so there is a great variety to the
point that when we celebrated our 15th
anniversary, one of the poets, when it was
50:02 - 50:08
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: his turn to read, said, We have nothing
in common except Naomi Long Madgett.
50:08 - 50:09
Eleanor W. Traylor: I remember that.
50:09 - 50:09
Eleanor W. Traylor: I
50:09 - 50:10
Eleanor W. Traylor: remember that.
50:11 - 50:16
Eleanor W. Traylor: Did you feel a kind of a sisterhood?
50:17 - 50:23
Eleanor W. Traylor: with other women writers, uh, coming
along, as we, uh, seem now to feel.
50:23 - 50:32
Eleanor W. Traylor: I mean, was there much, um,
um, companionship between you,
say, for instance, Margaret
Walker, who went on the books.
50:32 - 50:32
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Oh yes,
50:32 - 50:41
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: eventually, but at the time that I
got started, there was nobody else
out there writing that I was aware of.
50:42 - 50:54
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: You know, there, there was no sisterhood,
and in the late fifties, when, uh, we
formed a little group of poets in Detroit,
of black poets in Detroit, um, we had
50:54 - 51:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: a very fine fellowship, but um, beyond
that, as time has gone along, of course,
yes, this sisterhood has developed.
51:04 - 51:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Developed.
51:04 - 51:05
Eleanor W. Traylor: But
51:05 - 51:05
Eleanor W. Traylor: at that
51:05 - 51:06
Eleanor W. Traylor: time, you were
51:06 - 51:10
Eleanor W. Traylor: like Phyllis, sort of alone, you
know, and searching and searching
51:12 - 51:14
Eleanor W. Traylor: Mashing up wonderful images.
51:16 - 51:24
Eleanor W. Traylor: Could you read that poem to Phyllis
for us now, since you won't read
it at your, your reading today,
and we just want to hear it.
51:24 - 51:26
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: All right, I'll be happy to.
51:27 - 51:29
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: It's called Phyllis.
51:29 - 51:38
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: It begins in Goree Island, on Goree
Island, and toys with the idea that
Miss Wheatley was perhaps more
51:38 - 51:47
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: aware of conditions that she let
on, but that she was doing, um, a
job of role playing or mask wearing.
51:50 - 52:00
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I hardly remember my mother's face
now, but I still feel at my bosom a
chill wind, stirring strange longings
52:00 - 52:05
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: for the sturdy back I used to lean
against for warmth and comfort.
52:05 - 52:14
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: When I had grown too tall to ride,
and I am blinded by the glint of
sunlight, striking golden fire from
52:14 - 52:21
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: the flint of sea foamed rocks below me
on some island not too far from home.
52:23 - 52:32
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: After that, the only light I saw
was a few wayward chinks of day that
somehow slanted into the airless tomb.
52:33 - 52:37
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: where chains confined me
motionless to a dank wall.
52:38 - 52:42
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Then the sun died and
time went out completely.
52:43 - 52:57
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: In that new putrid hell trap of the dead
and dying, the stench of vomit, sweat,
and feces mingled with the uneasy motion
of the ship until my senses failed me.
52:59 - 53:11
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I do not know how many weeks or months
I neither thought nor felt, but I
awoke one night, or day perhaps,
revived by a consciousness of sound.
53:12 - 53:23
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I heard the pounding of the waves
against the ship's side, and made
believe its rhythm was the speech of
tribal drums summoning in acute need.
53:23 - 53:33
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: The spirit of my ancestors, I
dreamed I saw their carbon images
arrayed in ceremonial austerity.
53:34 - 53:39
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I thought I heard their voices
thundering an answer to my supplication.
53:40 - 53:41
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Hold fast,
53:44 - 53:44
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: survive.
53:45 - 53:46
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Survive.
53:48 - 53:51
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And then I slept again once more.
53:51 - 53:52
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: The sunlight came.
53:53 - 53:55
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But not the same as I remembered it.
53:56 - 54:01
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Now it sat silver cold upon the
indifferent New England coast.
54:01 - 54:04
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Still, it was good to see the sun at all.
54:05 - 54:13
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: And it was something to find
myself the bright, dark mascot of
a blind but well intentioned host.
54:13 - 54:21
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: A toy, a curiosity, a child
taking delight in anyone's
attention after so long a death.
54:23 - 54:25
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: As I grew older, it was not enough.
54:26 - 54:37
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: That native life song, once again
burst free, spilled over sands of my
acquired rituals, urged me to match
54:37 - 54:44
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: the tribal rhythms that had so long
sustained me, that must sustain me still.
54:44 - 54:47
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: I learned to sing a dual song.
54:49 - 54:55
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: My father's will forgive me if I lie,
for they instructed me to live, not die.
54:56 - 55:00
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Grief cannot compensate for
what is lost, they told me.
55:00 - 55:03
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Win, and never mind the cost.
55:03 - 55:07
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Show to the world the
face the world would see.
55:07 - 55:08
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Be slave.
55:09 - 55:10
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Be pet.
55:10 - 55:12
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Conceal yourself.
55:13 - 55:14
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: But be.
55:15 - 55:23
Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett: Lurking behind the docile Christian
lamb, unconquered lioness asserts, I am.
55:25 - 55:26
Eleanor W. Traylor: Oh my God.
55:27 - 55:29
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's the whole history of poetry.
55:31 - 55:33
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's historical.
55:33 - 55:34
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's mythical.
55:35 - 55:36
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's personal.
55:36 - 55:41
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's plug, it's public, it's
evocative, it's alliterative.
55:41 - 55:44
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's the dissonant, the
dissonance, and the consonance.
55:44 - 55:45
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's the antithesis.
55:46 - 55:47
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's everything you bring to poetry.
55:47 - 55:48
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's lovely.
55:48 - 55:50
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's God, it is beautiful.
55:50 - 55:53
Eleanor W. Traylor: It's you and, and feel sweet.
55:53 - 56:00
Eleanor W. Traylor: I mean, it is not just, it is a
personal evocation of that spirit.