Before I left for a Thanksgiving holiday in the wild west, I sat in my bathroom (a virtual literary journal library!), and sipped my daily dose of Alehouse 2009. I look forward to my annual issue of Alehouse, a journal edited by Jay Rubin of The Peralta Press fame. Maybe "fame" is a strong word, but Peralta (now defunct) was the first place (outside of my own school journals) to publish my poetry. I've been a loyal fan of both journals ever since. This year's Alehouse is my favorite yet. A rich mishmash of new names and old, of great poetry and short prose pieces, it has kept me well entertained and reflective. This issue pays tribute to African-American poets and poetry, and scattered throughout are interviews, poems, and short essays by and about them.
Seventy-one pages in, there is a short piece by Anastacia Tolbert introducing and memorializing Mbembe Martin Smith, a poet I wish I'd heard of sooner. I'm thankful for the introduction, and I plan to order his Selected Poems from BkMk Press; I wish I could find more of his work online to share, but perhaps a very short excerpt from "Survival Poem" will suffice for now:
"we can let our speech become air
& our fist soft clay.
or we can rise
up thru these filty towns
to rule our own space."
His is a poetry of an urban experience, an African-American experience, but it also a poetry of our shared experience. His work recalls and foreshadows difficult issues he and those around him faced (racism, poverty, and suicide, for example) with a lyrical and straightforward intensity that insists on being felt rather than observed. That he took his own life at 36 is tragic, but it is not a reason to read or not read his work. Smith's work should be read because it is good, important, and needs to be remembered. I hope that his collection being back in print, as well as his tribute here and elsewhere, will help ensure that his contribution to poetry's widening canon is not forgotten.
Subscribe
Posts
Comments
3 comments:
I think the best way to respect what it is like to be black in the USA, is to not claim to understand it. One couldn't know what it is like to deal with black racism unless they were black themselves and I think many blacks feel offended when someone claims "I know how you feel" when they really don't. This idea is presented really well in the South Park episode : "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" in season 11.
I guess you're responding to when I call Smith's experience "our experience," right? I think you are right and wrong. You are right that part of respecting someone lies in recognizing their separateness, that their experience is, in the end, unknowable. But another part of respect is the contrary: acknowledging the connections & similarities between the other person and yourself. I believe that black American history is American history & that black American poetry is American poetry. The only reason we have separate courses in these topics -- when we have them at all -- is that white people won't give up any turf to make room for more stories. The great white myth is that the curriculum is "full."
If the curriculum were different, this "separate but respected" attitude would be harder to claim in innocence.
I think it is problematic to say that "blacks are offended" in a unilateral way. I also think it is problematic to let oneself skip the process of trying to know someone else's experience out of "respect" for their difference. I can never understand Smith -- or any person known or unknown -- in a complete way. I can never know myself completely. But I reflect on my actions, my mistakes, my dreams, and I understand myself better and better. By adding Smith to my reading list, I understand him better, I understand American poetry better, and, by adding it to the dozens of other black writers I've read, I add his to my understanding of black experience, too.
But you're right. "I know how you feel" is always a lie. And I'm glad South Park illuminated that a bit for you. And I also believe that your comment comes from a good place, and I love you for it. Thanks for reading & commenting.
Spoken like a true prodigy.
Post a Comment