Dr. Elaine Brown Spencer
By Adebe DeRango-Adem
Dr. Elaine Brown Spencer’s courageous play, adapted from her recently published book, breaks the silence and tackles issues in the Black church community members have ignored for too long. Sway sits with the acclaimed writer and scholar Dr. Elaine Brown Spencer to get at the heart of the issue, and how she keeps the faith.
AD: Your play Private Pain In Public Pews is adapted from a book you recently wrote (Private Pain In Public Pews: Uncovering the Hidden Secrets of Life in the Pews, Westbow Press, 2010) and looks at the silenced pain that goes on in church communities. What was writing the book like, and then creating a play from that text? Did you find making the transition to playwriting natural?
ES: The process of writing this book was intense and exhilarating. It allowed me to give voice to the thousands in the pews who have experienced silent pain left unaddressed. During the four months of writing this book, the truth is, I had no idea that I would adapt it into a play as that wasn’t the purpose initially. However, half way into my writings, I was divinely inspired to adapt the book into theatrical form. It was somewhat of an easy transition as the framework for the storylines were already written in chapter 2 on “Real Talk,” which is the chapter the play is based upon. The actual transition from book writing to playwriting did feel natural but writing the scripts was definitely challenging at times in terms of eliminating some of the detail that is not necessary for the stage. Nevertheless, this process has been deeply rewarding and I am looking forward to writing part two.
Does the play mirror your own spiritual journey in any way?
Absolutely. I grew up in the Black Church and I have seen and experienced a lot. Some of the storylines depict portions of actual life events that I have encountered. The play connects the viewer with the spiritual realities of faith communities who experience and overcome many obstacles. This is why I am so passionate about the unique and cherished community of the Black Church because despite the “drama” there is a relentless vitality, power and hope for those who strive to and have overcome life’s obstacles.
It might be argued that in order for an idea to really be transformative, it can’t “preach to the converted” so to speak; it has to speak to those who are willing to be changed. What do you think of this?
Part of the issue today is not being real about our failure and struggles. This is not to suggest that we should not be aiming for success but rather that we should have a humble approach to life’s realities. If we tackle ideas that transcend superficiality and be real about struggles that can be remedied through our faith in God (as in the case of characters Samantha and Sarah in the play, for example), that is where change comes about.
You have an impressive academic background, with a PhD in Sociology & Equity Studies. Do you see a connection between equity studies and your pursuits in the creative arts?
Most definitely. My dissertation looked at the historical Black Churches in Canada from a sociological perspective. There has been little attention in academia to the role of the Canadian Black Church in the Black Community. I argue that the Black Church played a pivotal role during the Afro-Caribbean immigration years of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. It served as a social welfare institution and safe haven for black people who experienced severe injustices and discrimination in Canada. The Black church provided an outlet and sense of belonging for a people who were dehumanized in broader society. Yet, the creativity and resilience fostered amongst its members has been the catalyst to its survival. The creative arts have always kept us going. The music, the vibrance, the preaching style and oratory skills within the church are all distinct cultural patterns that should not be ignored. My play Private Pain in Public Pews connects faith with equity as it creates a space for us to interpret the church from within, not negatively from those who are not members of this community.
Who would you say your primary audience is, as an author as well as playwright?
As an author and playwright, my primary audience are people who enjoy Black Theatre from a perspective of faith.
How do you see the state of Black Canadian theatre?
There seems to be a revival and upswing of theatre immersed in the Black experience but not enough that is faith based. I would love to see more of this as I believe there is a huge audience that would welcome Black Canadian Theatre that connects issues of faith.
What are you working on now, and where can we go to hear more about your work?
I am currently working on doing more shows and developing the sequel for my play, Private Pain in Public Pews – Part II. You can hear more about my work by visiting www.drelainespencer.com, Facebook, or by emailing me at [email protected].
Private Pain in Public Pews
Charlyn Ellis
By Adebe DeRango-Adem
Charlyn Ellis is a community outreach worker, creative writer and host of Covered and Bound at CHRY 105.5 Community Radio, a program dedicated to covering the boundless array of Canadian authors and literary visionaries. She is also a graduate of the Creative Writing program at York University who is working on a full-length collection of poems.
Sway: You are the host of Covered and Bound at CHRY 105.5 Community Radio. Can you tell us about your journey to the radio station, how you got there, and what the show represents to you through its evolution?
Energized and excited about literature, I had this strong need to share my love of the written word and found that love for literature in Jackie, who was taking on the show as a collective member while working at CHRY as volunteer coordinator. I also went on to pursue Creative Writing at York University, where CHRY is hosted, and when you take the time to study it at university-level you get an exposure to the written word that is diversified and universally encompassing.
What blessed creatures we are, humans gifted with this ability to express ourselves creatively by writing! I can never forget the original host Neil Armstrong who defined Covered and Bound as a program that exposes and explores the creative energy of writers and word artists in this city.
Sway: How do you read the significance of the show’s title (i.e. Covered and Bound)?
It was the name given to it by founder Neil Armstrong, who was closely tied to York University in terms of involvement with its distinct writers, professors and students. This is something I try to do now; I feel this sense of covering and binding all that is literature. Did you know that bound also means to dwell? Dwelling in the community, covering how words are use to “cover” the community, the many variations literary and spoken words take and how they work. I want to continue showcasing the many diverse voices that contribute to this creative force in Toronto.
Sway: Covered and Bound does an amazing job at covering writers from all cultural communities, especially Black communities in Canada. How do you see the role of radio broadcast journalism within the larger project of recognizing, preserving and promoting the contributions of peoples of African ancestry and their collective histories?
Frantz Fanon in A Dying Colonialism showed how important of a role radio played during the Algerian revolution. Our histories of struggle have always been aided by radio broadcasting, just as the oppressed in Algeria used radio to launch their revolutionary activities. Community radio is the voice for dissent, there is that story circle that happens in many cultures around the radio.
As a people we need community radio to provide information on our struggles, to voice our opinion on the injustices we continue to experience, and especially those injustices unique to communities of colour. Radio fight for the rights of all, is the voice for that kind of struggle. The view and information expressed on community radio programs like Covered & Bound is not what you would hear on commercial radio. No one gets paid, I should add; that is where the passion comes from.
Sway: What attracted you to radio journalism, and broadcast news?
My attraction to radio journalism came from a need to voice opinions not found in the mainstream, and feature the voices of writers not likely to get heard. Community radio is located in the very communities it seeks to serve, and gives voice to such communities, highlighting how important they are all the time, and not just when tragedies beset them. Community radio is a primary way of shedding light on the greater social issues in particular communities as well. When something happens at Jane and Finch, the radio station is there for those who live there, to engage in conversations that the commercial media would not allow.
Sway: What role does Black and/or mainstream media play in the lives of Black Canadians today?
Black-owned radio is a lifeline in our community. Mainstream media’s role is, as much as we may not always be willing to admit, to maintain oppressive racist stereotypes. Black-owned programming makes it possible for us to see the underlying messages that play out against us in mainstream media, and challenge such platforms. It is by no means easy to run a Black-owned radio station and try to offer programming that is relevant to the Black community without coming up against the hostility of racism within capitalism systems, but is also by all means necessary.
Sway: Do you think we need more Black-specific programming?
When you study literature you learn and appreciate its universality. In a British Literature class I found a woman writer, Aphra Behn, who wrote a slave narrative and was also the first woman to live entirely off her writing. I really admire her tenacity. I am a lover of literature and do a show around literature, and take it upon myself to ensure I represent the voices of unheard writers, women, and people of colour. I feel we need more literati programming for voices of dissent, which will always include people of colour.
Sway: What were some memorable authors/interview experiences you remember C&B?
Austin Clarke, hands down. The 2 1/2 hours I sat in Austin Clarke’s house for a personal interview. I had been fortunate – no, blessed – to have had him, in his generosity, give me his time over a year, twice a month. I met with him as I am working on creative non-fiction, glossing his short story, “My Letter from the Law of Black” to structure my own.
To actually have him edit each and every draft I did and brought to him, and then have him introduce me as his student was incredible. So when he gave me this chance to talk to him with no time constraints. I jumped at it, as I already knew it would be a truly memorable experience. He took breaks during the interview, and if you have read the story around his interview with Malcolm X you will know about The Malcolm X Chair in his living room. When he popped out of the room I had to sit in it!
The historical Malcolm X interview he did was conducted during his early years at the CBC, and not having had technical recording expertise at the time, the interview did not record. Well, being one of my first interviews for Covered & Bound, and not having too much experience with a recorder myself, I made the same uncanny mistake. I have a two-and-a-half hour interview with Austin Clarke that is barely audible, and I am making the time to transcribe it.
Sway: As an avid reader, what are some Black-authored books that hold a special place on your shelves or in your heart?
I feel every woman should read Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Café, From Babylon to Timbuktu, which was a changing force in the learning of my story. Then there is everything by Toni Morrison, especially The Bluest Eyes, she is genius, writing narratives that are so compelling in how they retell our collective histories, in a language that is so sensitive and emotionally riveting.
My life as a young teenager was forever changed by seeing “For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough” the “choreopoem,” and then the book. Alice Walker’s Good Night Willie Lee I’ll See You in the Morning, my first book of poetry which I still have! Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring for its affinity with the Eaton Centre in Toronto which any teenager growing up in Canada during the late seventies can tell you was our community centre! bell hooks, for continuing to plea for us to engage in de-colonizing our minds as well as her continuous work to help us see how we need to develop sister strength. There are so many: d’bi.young Anita Afrika’s book of poems Rivers and Other Blackness between Us. Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For. In this City, a compilation of short stories by Austin Clarke. George Elliott Clarke’s book of poetry Black for its sheer beauty. Getting Mothers Body by J. California Cooper. Arrival of the Snake Woman by Olive Senior.
Sway: I have had the honour of performing my creative work many a wonderful time on C&B. What advice would you have to writers who want to get their voice heard on the radio, and are just starting out?
It’s one thing to drop off a CD or a book, but find me. Come up to York University on a Monday and meet your community radio station, look in my eyes, shake my hand and share a smile. Let me see your passion for what you do, which will in turn show me why you need to have the community hear you. International Poetry month continues, and I hope to interview a range of poets including award-winning poets Prisicila Uppal (York University professor, our official Olympic poet) and Shane Koyczan, as well as the man who coined the phrase Dub Poetry: Oku Onuora, the father of Dub Poetry. In May its children book writer Jody Nyasha Warner for Viola Desmond Will Not Be Moved, Vancouver poet and professor Wayde Compton, and so much more!
Tune in to Covered and Bound with Charlyn Ellis on CHRY 105.5 FM, every Monday from 4-5 p.m. EST.
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Author Pamela Mordecai
By Adebe DeRango-Adem
Pamela Mordecai is a Jamaican writer, teacher, and scholar and poet. She attended high school in Jamaica and college in the United States, where she did a first degree in English. A trained language-arts teacher with a PhD in English, she has taught at secondary and tertiary levels, trained teachers, and worked in media and in publishing. She is the author of over thirty books, including textbooks, children’s books, and four books of poetry. She lives in Toronto.
1. When did you first discover the power of words? Did you write as a child?
I think I discovered the power of words by being on stage. Two of my clearest, earliest memories are of being in plays. In the first, the name of which I can’t recall, I played Rosebud and wore a dreadful costume made out of red and green crepe paper with edges crimped by pinking shears! The other recollection is of playing Cobweb, one of Titania’s fairies, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, wearing a delicious, filmy, silvery-black tutu! I took part in many plays in school, and began reciting poems early. The first piece of my writing that is still extant is a poem about Hurricane Charlie in 1951. Here are the first two verses:
Terror and horror
that it was
for sadness and sorrow
it did and it does
for sadness and sorrow
were all that it taught
and sadness and sorrow
were all that it brought.
I was nine.
2. What initially prompted you to compose the stories that make up your most recent collection, Pink Icing and Other Stories (Insomniac Press, 2006)?
I say in the acknowledgments to Pink Icing that the story about my father’s death, “Limber Like Me,” got the collection going, and in a way that’s true, though it isn’t in fact the first story I wrote. “Limber Like Me” won a prize in the Prism International Short Story competition in 1998 and that was very heartening, because I had not published much prose at that point, and thought of myself pretty much as a poet and children’s writer. I am ambivalent about literary prizes, since so many things other than merit can influence a judge’s choice.
Overall, the system of awards and grants in Canada serves the literary community very well, and the competitions run by Canadian literary journals every year do a good job of promoting and encouraging writers. When I won grants from the OAC and TAC for a proposed short fiction collection put together around that prize-winning story, I grabbed the ball and ran. The result was Pink Icing, which was, as I remember, initially called “Limber Like Me.”
3. How would you describe your working style, or optimal environment for writing?
I write many kinds of things, and the writing process can be very different, depending on the project. For example, developing a play can be a lengthy process of work-shopping over many years, of rewriting according to feedback from readings, rewriting once the play is actually in production, according to that set of exigencies, and so on. However, if I’m commissioned to write a textbook or edit an anthology, for example, there’s inevitably a timeline embedded in a contract. In that case, everything else gets put to one side, and I’m focussed to the point of obsession. That’s really not the best way to approach any task. One can miss many good “real life” things when one is so completely enthralled by a project.
If I’m working on poetry or fiction, the process is gentler—sometimes a bit too gentle. It takes me, on average, five years or so to produce a collection of creative work. Recently, I’ve been involved with writing groups, and that’s been great in creating more disciplined writing habits. I said a while back on OBT that the optimal writing environment for me is “being at my computer on the top floor of our house, looking through the window at the Toronto skyline, not worrying about money, with my husband, Martin, also a writer, nearby, to give me feedback and make me lunch and dinner.” That’s still true.
4. You have been seen as both a quintessential Caribbean writer, and yet, couldn`t it be argued that there is no single Caribbean literary style, because such a style is necessarily cross-cultural, interlingual, creole? How do you see yourself within the Caribbean literary tradition?
I think you are absolutely right—there is no single anything in the Caribbean: literary style, culinary tradition, music, dance, religion, and so forth. So there’s probably no quintessential Caribbean writer either. It’s all fluid, “Everything is everything,” as Ms. Lauryn Hill would say, and the tolerance—indeed the happy, exhilarated indulgence of that fluidity—is perhaps what is most Caribbean of all! I think we now recognize language as an important part of what is Caribbean. I keep saying language is the first thing of their own that the slaves made, and in the case of Jamaica, they made our patwa very fast.
Jamaican language has come into its own, thanks to Claude McKay, Louise Bennett, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, a host of reggae ambassadors, the dub poets, Dick HoLung, Oliver Samuels and a vast diaspora of unapologetic creole speakers and performers. Theorists of créolité and Antillanité see language as a defining characteristic of being Antillean. Me, I don’t believe in definitions. Still, Caribbean voices and the sound of patwa are a very big part of my inspiration. I’ve always heard those rhythms loud and clear and they’ve always been deeply affecting, perhaps because I was lucky enough to be tuned to their pith and power early by the poetry and commentary of Louise Bennett, the banter of Miss Lou and Maas Rannie, the raucous carryings on of Putus and Rannie, the pantomimes at Ward Theatre in which Jamaican creole held mighty sway… as for how I see myself in the tradition: I’ve written a lot for children, and I really ought to collect that writing, because there is so little for Caribbean children.
I am determined to tell down-to-earth stories in poetry and prose, avoiding what I tease my husband by calling “like-and-as writing.” I’m not interested in the high literary stuff, the writing that’s hard to read. I can be as obtuse as anybody, but we’ve lost three generations of readers because we thought we’d plunk for being highfalutin, which neither Dickens nor Jane Austen nor Sam Selvon nor Olive Senior are. And they are superb storytellers.
5. How do you see your writing projects within the larger project of recognizing, preserving and promoting the contributions of Caribbean peoples and their collective histories?
My husband and I wrote a book called Culture and Customs of Jamaica, a reference work published in the U.S. I like to think it’s a contribution to the work you identify. Where my other writing projects up to now are concerned, other persons may pass judgment, except perhaps in the one respect that they are very firmly rooted in Jamaican language and the culture of ordinary Jamaican town and city folk. I’ve put together or shared in putting together four important anthologies, the most recent being Her True-True Name, published in 1989 and co-edited with my sister, Betty Wilson. It is the first collection of fiction by women from the Anglophone/Francophone/Hispanophone Caribbean, in English translation.
6. What books would be on your quintessential Black History reading list, for readers seeking to widen their understanding of the Black literary tradition? What are some memorable Black-authored books that have aspecial place in your shelves?
Don’t know if this is my quintessential reading list but these come to mind right away. They have a Caribbean focus because that is where I born and grow and know best.
Voices in Exile: Jamaican texts of the 18th and 19th Centuries by Jean D’Costa and Barbara Lalla
Daughters of Africa: an International Anthology of Words & Writings by Women of African Descent ed M. Busby
The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse ed. Paula Burnett
Defining Jamaican Fiction: Marronage and the Discourse of Survival by Barbara Lalla
The Jamaican Stage, 1655-1900: Profile of a Colonial Theatre by Errol Hill
Her True-True Name: an Anthology of Women’s Writing from the Caribbean ed. B. Wilson and P. Mordecai
History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry by Kamau Brathwaite
As for books by Black writers that have a special place on my bookshelf, that would be a long list, but would certainly include (and this time there are two Canadians):
The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820 by Kamau Brathwaite
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene D. Genovese
Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage by Olive Senior
Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber
The Dragon Can’t Dance by Earl Lovelace
The Housing Lark by Samuel Selvon
Inventory by Dionne Brand
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The poetic oeuvres of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott
7. At what moment did you realize that you wanted/needed to be an author? Was there a moment, or was it more of an unfolding series of experiences?
No moment – very much an unfolding of (fortunate) experiences. I started writing poetry in high school and some of it was not bad—pretty crafty. I was writing seriously when I was in my twenties and had come back to Jamaica from college in the US; mostly poetry but certainly one play. Some of the poems I published in literary journals. I was very lucky, though. A UK publisher (of school textbooks) found me, and I found a writing partner, and after that we were off and running, certainly as far as earning money from writing books was concerned. I’ve been able, between one thing and another, to earn my living from writing and writing related activities for at least 20 years. What I discovered soon enough was that I am very happy when I write. Also, I very much enjoy writing for children. El Numero Uno, a play I wrote for young people, premiered at the Loraine Kimsa Theatre in Black History Month last year.
8. What author in history would you have loved to have a coffee (or tea) and chat with, and why?
I rather think I’d like to have a drink of any kind with Shakespeare—for one thing, I could then tell everybody who he or she is! I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the Bard was Black. Certainly he has the diaspora Black person’s urgent delight in language, rhetoric—the “word in audible motion” as one Caribbean critic puts it—that contains that special enjoyment of and satisfaction in the power of the enacted voice. There would be a lot to talk about: his knowledge of the world and of books, his attitudes (perverse, playful, tongue-in-cheek, respectful, reverent) to women as well as to the marginalized, the high- and low-born, and more generally to human beings in their greatness and wickedness and folly. And above all, his craft.
9. Are you currently at work with any new projects?
My newest project involves turning my second book of poetry—de man: a performance poem—into a full-length play. It’s the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ written entirely in Jamaican Creole. I’m also remaking some of my children’s poems into mash-ups of French, Spanish, English and Jamaican patwa. I find mash-ups interesting and challenging. I also hope to start work on a book about the insights offered by translating the Gospel stories into Jamaican patwa, tentatively called “The Risible Jesus”.
10. Will you be reading or presenting at any upcoming events? Where can we go to hear or find your work?
On Wednesday, February 23rd, Olive Senior, Rachel Manley and I read from award-winning works of memoir, fiction and poetry and join Donna Bailey-Nurse for a discussion about the art of loving Jamaica. It’s at the Don Mills Public Library and starts at seven o’clock.
Visit Pamela Mordecai’s website at www.pamelamordecai.com.
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By Adebe DeRango-Adem
Dane Swan is a poet and spoken-word performer living in Toronto. He has been featured in more than a dozen North American cities and competed in numerous poetry slams, including the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (placing 2nd with Team Toronto) and the Rust Belt Regional Slam (placing 3rd with Team Toronto). His poetry can be found in the pages of Rampike, Misunderstandings and Vallum magazines, as well as in anthologies and on various CD projects.
When did you first discover the power of words? Did you write as a child?
Ever since I can remember words have always had an immense power. I wrote a lot of stories and poems as a kid. In all honesty, high school turned me off of traditional creative writing. I ended up keeping my writing skills sharp writing raps and dancehall lyrics as a teenager.
What initially prompted you to write your poetry chapbook, Narcotics//Flora?
I’m proudly a member of Canada’s spoken-word poetry community. Unfortunately, some members of the literary community have created fictional stereotypes of the poetry that spoken-word poets, particularly slam poets, are capable of writing. At the time I wrote Narcotics // Flora, the anti spoken-word rhetoric was at its loudest. I wanted to quietly make a point—that a slam poet could write eloquent, tight and structured poetry while keeping on message.
Your book is described as a collection based on transit and the aesthetics of the city; it features poetry that is literally in motion. What is it about the transience of urban space that attracts you as a writer? I think moving and motion is life. Breathing is movement. We are never still. That goes for immigrants as well; they are constantly moving, searching for a place to call home. Cities can be described as living organisms.
You are known predominately in Toronto as a spoken-word artist, though your style lends itself to a variety of traditions. How do you see the role of spoken word/oral traditions writing within the larger project of recognizing, preserving and promoting the contributions of Black peoples and their collective histories?
The word is everything. Poetry and all storytelling traditions were born of oral tradition. The printing press is merely an extension of these traditions, not a replacement. That’s why books are printed in English, French, etc. If books were the domain of the elite they would only be written in Latin. As for Black History, it’s not enough for us to mimic the traditions of our forefathers. As a community we have to carry oral traditions and the history behind them. Gospel music, spoken-word, storytelling, and even rap are linked together in many ways. It is part of our larger project to understand how and why.
You were born in Bermuda. How has the experience of moving from Bermuda to Canada factored into your work?
I was born and raised in Bermuda but my mother is Jamaican. Until my grandpa died when I was 10, we spent our summers, Christmases and some Easters in the small village of Yallas. We also spent time in Lands End and Kingston. Bermuda and Jamaica are similar in a number of ways: friendly populations, black majorities, island culture. The biggest difference was the economic situation. Spending time between those two islands was really humbling. When I first moved to Canada, I was excited that my mother’s culture was so pronounced, but I was also upset at how much Jamaican culture was commodified. I remember going into Jamaican restaurants and asking for things every Jamaican should know and getting blank stares. They didn’t know what sorrel was. I could take the cold but a disregard of my mother’s culture was most difficult. It did show me that there is a truth and then an image held up as the truth. My goal as a writer has always been to show an honest, unbiased reality. I guess seeing discrepancies in how my mother’s culture was portrayed here influenced that in my writing.
Do you see Black Canadian writers who identify with a Diaspora as more apt to use their craft to cross multiple barriers aesthetically or culturally?
It’s tough to say whether being identified with a particular Diaspora (Bermudian) allows me to cross barriers that other Black Canadian writers cannot. I assume so. I have a pretty varied life experience, but the truth is we don’t know what the young Black Canadian writer’s voice is. There have been Black people in Canada since before it was called Canada, but Black children are often informed otherwise. There is at least a generation of Black Canadians who don’t know what they are, or are uncomfortable in their skin because they are trying to fit into a mould that doesn’t exist. Hopefully one day those voices will rise.
You and fellow Toronto poet Dan D’Onorio (aka Soulfistikato) founded Soul Jah Ras Productions to promote spoken word and slam poetry in Toronto over the last several years, and have been the tireless hosts of the Toronto $100 Slam, now nearing the end of its series. How has the experience of hosting the slam inspired the course of your writing career?
Hosting anything will challenge you. We started $100 Slam because we didn’t think there were enough stages in Toronto for spoken word. We also felt that spoken-word artists could learn something from their literary brethren. Now there are tons of stages. A number of literary poets interact with spoken word artists and vice versa. We like to think we helped forge some of those changes in the local community.
How would you describe your working style, or optimal environment for writing?
I can write anywhere. Sometimes I write notes on my cell phone in nightclubs. I would never let something like comfort get in the way of a good poem. The optimum environment is wherever I’m inspired and can write without getting wet or run over.
What are you reading right now? I just finished Austin Clarke’s In This City. Right now I’m struggling with a translation of The Egyptian Book of The Dead. After that I have The Frog Lake Reader, Things Fall Apart… as you know, if you decide to be a writer, reading becomes part of the job.
What author in history would you have loved to have a coffee (or tea) and chat with, and why?
Langston Hughes. He is one of the few Black American writers who comfortably talks about the struggles of race yet never makes guilt part of the price to read his work. Genius is an understatement.
Finally, are you currently at work with any new projects? Where can we go to hear or find your work?
My first full-length book, Bending the Continuum, is slated for a May launch with Guernica Editions. Also, Dan and I have a blog: www.souljahras.wordpress.com. I try to post all events either one of us are involved with there.
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Photo by Applied Photography Ltd
By Adebe DeRango Adem
February is Black History Month, and the Toronto Public Library is proud to celebrate Black history and heritage with a series of readings, discussion groups, music and more.
Here is a guide to some literary highlights happening during the month of February at libraries across Toronto.
Christian Campbell and Adebe D.A.
Tuesday February 1, 2011
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at the Toronto Reference Library
Join literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse (Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writers) for a series of readings and intimate conversations about living and writing the Black Canadian experience. Acclaimed poets Christian Campbell (Running the Dusk) and Adebe DeRango-Adem (Ex Nihilo) launch our Black History Month celebration.
Haiti: One Year Later
Wednesday February 2, 2011
6:45 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at North York Central Library
This panel discussion on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti focuses on the last year’s humanitarian, the current situation and how Canadians can help. Speakers include Marilyn McHarg, the Director General and co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, and Toronto Star columnist, Catherine Porter. Eric Doubt, Director General of Helping Hands for Haiti International, will be moderating the discussion. Seating is limited. Call 416-395-5660 to register.
Adwoa Badoe
Saturday February 5, 2011
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. at Malvern Library
Meet vibrant storyteller and educator Adwoa Badoe, author of several children’s books and known for employing interactive songs, chants and rhythm in her telling of African stories. She will be reading from Between Sisters, an urban coming of age story set in Ghana that tells the story of sixteen year old Gloria, as she navigates her life against the hazards of poverty and exploitative relationships to find her dreams.
Rosemary Sadlier
Tuesday February 8, 2011
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at North York Central Library
Meet Rosemary Sadlier, President of the Ontario Black History Society and author of The Kid’s Book of Canadian Black History. Seating is limited. Call 416-395-5660 to register.
Nalo Hopkinson and Djanet Sears
Tuesday February 8, 2011
7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Palmerston Library
Join literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse (Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writers) for a series of readings and intimate conversations about living and writing the Black Canadian experience. Novelist Nalo Hopkinson (Midnight Robber) and playwright Djanet Sears (Harlem Duet) have produced classics of Canadian literature. The multiple prize winning artists read from works-in-progress and discuss the life, love and art of Black Canadian women.
Walter Borden
Thursday February 10, 2011
7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Runnymede Library
Join literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse (Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writers) for a series of readings and intimate conversations about living and writing the Black Canadian experience. Walter Borden, one of the most acclaimed and best loved actors of the Canadian stage, joins Donna Bailey Nurse in conversation about his life and times as part of the TPL’s celebration of Black Canadian theatre.
For a detailed list of all library events, and a list of recommended Canadian Black History Titles for adults, teens and children, visit the Toronto Public Library.
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By Adebe DeRango-Adem
After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing and Region (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), the debut collection of essays on Canada’s interracial histories by poet and scholar Wayde Compton, is a refreshing remix of scholarly and poetic investigations into the various national myths that have dubbed Canada a “post-racial” nation.
With a focus on interracial relations in British Columbia, Compton’s book uncovers the uncomfortable place race continues to have in our national discourses and history books. Taken together, and in some ways taking off from Compton’s 2003 Bluesprint, an investigation into B.C.’s “phantom lineage” of Blacks, After Canaan offers an alternate epistemology for thinking about race in Canada, and a more fluid way of reading Canadian mixed-race identities.
Compton sees the phantom quality of Black history in Canada in relationship to his own mixed-race heritage, which brought him to inhabit a unique position and way of seeing race against the traditional visual schema of racial difference (i.e. black vs. white). “I think being an outsider, in certain ways, including as a mixed-race person, has forced me into a position of observing rather than participating in some experiences,” Compton maintains. “My race has always been something that recedes and inundates, according to seemingly mysterious patterns, so I’ve been compelled to try to understand the roots of these patterns.”
Part of After Canaan’s attempt to understand the roots of these patterns stems from its arguing against the term “racial passing,” which Compton deems is misused because it assumes racially ambiguous folks are always actively trying to be something they’re “not.” Compton instead forwards a new term for thought— “pheneticizing”—that shifts the racial gaze from the viewed to the viewer, and the assumptions at work in the anxious attempts to slot Canada`s racial populations into binaries. This anxiety, the text suggests, has manifested in a lack of interracial genealogies attributed to our nation’s historical records.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “phenetics” is defined as “the classification of organisms on the basis of their observed similarities and difference [...] without reference to functional significance or evolutionary relationships.” Compton expertly weaves the concept of pheneticizing through each essay, providing, in sum, a multi-faceted look into British Columbia’s interracial past.
Fascinating connections are made between the arrival of American Blacks in nineteenth-century B.C. and the processes of integration that ensued from the Maritimes to the West Coast. He also makes important connections between the destruction of Hogan’s Alley and legacy of misunderstood Black Canadian writers, the politics and poetics of hip-hop and turntabling, and, of course, Obama.
After Canaan marks Canada’s place in the future as dependent on an honest dialogue with its history, by expertly riffing on the concept of Canada as a promised land (“Canaan”) and arguing for a more strategic engagement with race—one that can function along poetic rather post-racial lines. As Compton notes, “Denying the experience of racism upholds racism. So we have to build on the popular instinct to get rid of race, but do it in a way that does not err on the side of silence and cowardice. We can’t allow anyone to deny the experience of racialized people. We won’t be post-race until we are post-racism.”
After Canaan arrives at a timely moment in history, offering new writings that re-imagine Canada’s interracial milieu.
Wayde Compton is a Vancouver writer whose books include After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region, Performance Bond, and 49th Parallel Psalm. Compton is also a co-founding member of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the public memory of Vancouver’s original black community, and a publisher of Commodore Books, the first and only Black literary press in western Canada. He teaches English composition and literature at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and Coquitlam College.
Adebe DeRango-Adem is a regular contributor to SWAY, as well as the author of Ex Nihilo (Frontenac House, 2010) and co-editor of Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications, 2010).
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Poet Adebe DeRango Adem
By Adebe DeRango-Adem
I come from the land of
Where You From?
My people dispossessed of their stories
and who have died again and again
in a minstrelsy of afterlives, wakes,
the dead who walk, waiting and
furrowed, like ivy crawling up
All those museums and mausoleums,
lifting languages from rivers.
But I cannot leave them
for the rugged North
nor the hot-blooded South south of us,
nor the untamed rivers or deltas
that plaster us to our jackets
My road is neither smooth nor gravel,
my destination neither cathedral nor whole.
I am learning
all about ex-colonial States and states,
the oblivion of my fate
and the legacy of the Veil
from sea to shining sea, drowning
in the calm of our Great Lakes
And the orphan angels
who crowd our classrooms:
I see them, heartless & disrespected
each page burning as it gets read,
and their othered faces burning to tell the others
this ain’t nobody’s Atlantic!
we don’t have to keep on dyin’ in books!
Adebe D.A. is a SWAY writer and former student of poet Amiri Baraka, whom she studied under at Naropa University in 2008. She has since published ex nihilo (Frontenac House, 2010), a poetry collection that considers the relationship between art and racial identification, and helped edit an anthology of interracial women’s writings, Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications, 2010).
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By Adebe DeRango-Adem
“What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.” – Carter G. Woodson on founding “Negro History Week,” 1926
Black History Month is a time to remember, honor and celebrate the accomplishments of notable Black figures throughout history. Today marks Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, celebrated across North America on the third Monday of January each year. Chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement, and remembered for his inspirational “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King is one of the greatest figures in history.
Yes, history. Not just Black history. When we celebrate figures such as Dr. King, I feel that it is imperative to remember that we are celebrating not merely Black achievement, but human achievement. This is why one day is not enough; and for Black History Month, a single month (which, as sardonically noted by various cultural critics and journalists, is the shortest month of the year) is sparse.
Some may argue that without the formal observation of Black History month, it would be impossible to recognize the accomplishments of African Canadians and African Americans; that Black contributions across disciplines—from science and politics to literature and the law—remains a marginalized subject, and that we need to highlight the meaning and relevance of these contributions in a way that observes them in a unique light.
However, many have also argued that it is more important we learn about each other’s history, culture and experiences throughout the year, and that themes as resilience, perseverance and confidence are relevant for all populations, regardless of race, ethnicity, or cultural location.
I take the position that it is always better to affirm and create awareness of the contributions made by Blacks in Canada and the U.S. as part of the larger project of recalling the pioneers who created these nations. Black History Month politicizes celebrations of diversity by recalling the very specific historical (as well as current) socio-political forces that shaped and influenced Black communities and identities. It is about promoting solidarity and empowerment in a time where both of these things are not always a given. A question that I often think about is whether we can give Black history the respect it deserves without suggesting that it needs to separate itself from the rest of historical discourse to prove that it deserves respect.
Nearly a century after Carter G. Woodson introduced Negro History Week, we have seen incredible historical leaps towards more just social relations on both the global and local planes, from the opening of Toronto’s first Africentric school to the momentous inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. There is much to celebrate, but that does not mean our responsibilities end there. We need to make anti-oppression an ongoing responsibility for all cultural communities, and never get too comfortable with the state of affairs, whoever and wherever we are. There is always more to learn; always another person to help. To quote Martin Luther King, Jr. himself: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” We need to move towards a deeper understanding of ethno-cultural diversity and race-related issues in libraries and classrooms as well as outside them, and be moved to action whenever oppression is exercised. We need to make discussions of equity and inclusivity a public, year-round conversation.
As we marvel at the man Dr. King was and is, as we hail the names of W.E. B. DuBois, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Rosa Parks and George Washington Carver; as we recite poems by the wonderful Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes, let us remember that true cultural knowledge, appreciation and celebration of our Black communities must continue at all costs, and that Dr. King would be most proud to know that the legacy he left was one of a deep affirmation of these communities—from school curriculums to books, policies and the media. An affirmation that has no beginning nor end, and includes all of us; an affirmation that can, in our era, take the leap from dream to reality.
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