poetry

Notes on a Novel: Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene

Since I’ve been busy not paying attention to this blog, I have progressed beyond Writing the Bones, my previous segment on the writing of my 1st conceptual verse novel. The skeleton is solidly formed and now it’s time to put meat on the bones, so to speak. The next segment, in my progression, will be based on the pages upon pages of handwritten notes on the book whose title I’ve narrowed down to three choices.

One of the characters in my book is Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene, historian. Dr. Greene published a book called The Negro in Colonial New England. Even though I went to elementary, middle and high school in Boston, this book was never part of any curriculum I encountered; not even in my year and a half at Emerson College. I don’t remember exactly how I came across this very informative (read detailed) book. It was either in a semi-recent history class at a local university or it was in Wendy Warren’s book, New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America. Either way, it was recent enough to be pissed that I was in my early 50’s when I found out about his scholarship, which is impeccable, btw.

But that anger is for another potential post about the state of education in this country. The purpose of this post is to discuss, somewhat, the role he plays in my novel. He is an angel to use Christian parlance. He is also a time traveler who uses his angelic abilities and his training as a historian to resolve a matter that had needled him in his professional life. In The Negro in Colonial New England, the matter that concerns him enough to affect his afterlife is nothing but a one line footnote. That disturbs him because the matter involves a rape. However, his chosen profession is limited by the tenets of histography and requires a poet to contextualize the pieces missing from the historical record. So he functions as a historian and a buffer against what he calls the poets “Africanist flights of fancy”.

It’s definitely a balancing act, navigating between the poet and the historian; especially since I like the poetic bits more!

That’s all for this week. Next week, I’ll talk about a different character.

Honoring Malcolm X (with poetry)

Flora and Fauna

I wanted to bless my eyes this morning
with flora and fauna
so I came in from the cold
of a dream full of unrelenting rain
and opened my eyes to what is customarily
my second sighting of the day:

My ideological father
shot down in the Audubon ballroom
where the only bird observed in motion
was the misappropriated eagle

until the phoenix rose
from the ash of a murderous minstrel show
and transformed into a panther

which prowled 
oakland to wounded knee
philadelphia to palestine
roaring revolution
until every generation
generated an evolution
of the message

thought to be dead forever
by those who are as white as the bones 
of the myriad numbers of people
whose deaths they are accountable for.

© 2006 Tichaona M.Chinyelu
Beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 
And I be holding beauty 

When I glance upon them 

Theoretically shaping 
The future into an afro 

Concentric sharpness 

That shook 
The white power structure 

Into confronting 
A black consciousness 
Organized with a mandate 
And a mission 

To dismiss 

That old time religion 
That said 
Everything in its place 
Especially the black race. 
A new paradigm of blackness 
Rooted in a community soliloquy. 
Ghetto equals colony 
And racism is the bastard child 
Of fascist economies. 
Fanon, Malcolm and James 
Became antidotes 
For antiquated theologies 
And anti-social pathologies. 

In the belly of the imperialistic beast, 
In the microcosm of prisons 
And the macrocosm of the streets 
A new paradigm for blackness, 
A paradise of struggle 
Was created by young soldiers 
High school students, 
Whores and pimps, 
Drug dealers and NASA employees, 
Doctors and number runners 
Heady 
Ready 
And willing 
With 
Fuck that shit. 
Far too many fires lit 
From Watts to the Congo 

Whitey gotta go 

Burn baby burn 
No ashes in the urn 
Time for the tide to turn 
And put an end to the yearn. 

Discern 

Panther power was here 
Turned the police into pigs 
And nigs into blacks 

Figuratively burning effigies 
With tactics and strategies 
That earned them freedom's mind.

exploring like

don’t ask me how i like it
cause i like it like that
like lauren velez

sticky sweet like honey
amped like espresso
diaphanous like weed smoke
rock solid like
ashford and simpson

phosphorous like venus
everlasting like ever-ready
comical like cedric
digging dogs like dmx
diggedy diggedy like das efx
between the sheets like isley
my hip bone connected
to my erogenous zone

quiet storm like mobb deep
number 1 like nelly
soul on a train like don cornelius
ton of reggae like don omar
dirty like reggie
boss like beanie
eat the apple like eve

lady like fela dem song
me wan piece of meat fore anybody
african woman go dance
me go dance the fire dance

yin like yang
contra like contradiction
change up like chance

generous like kikuyu
split the bean three ways
ballistic like missile
brave like heart
war like zulu
righteous like malcolm
love like assata
write like ngugi

warm like fire
fiery like habanero
love you like bess
dangerous like tosh
murder like she wrote
look for me like marcus
don’t kill me like osama

end like this

formulate my thoughts like philosophy

Gorée Island Ghosts (Chapter 1-3): awakening

I. 

that sensation again

the magnetic pull of ocean sediment
settling on   forming   my skeleton

the ghosts of those thrown overboard
collecting melanin deposits from the atlantic's floor

sending it to me in waves
giving my skeleton the skin it lacks

monetaria moneta yielding up its protective shells
giving me eyes of cowrie, the whites like porcelain


II. 

I light gardenia incense
for the flower in Lady Day's hair.

Talk to plants sensitive to the vibrations
that accompany her visitation.

Open my windows to untethered wind
to roam as is its wont.

I can breathe.

Oxygen is an angel in my personal pantheon.


III.

The door of no return is a fallacy
I think
as she forms in my mind
small, bathed in indigo
eyes gleaming like the shells
adoring my wrist.

The river niger flows from her tongue
shards of spanish slashing the surface
the closer to the atlantic
her body was borne.

I offer her my smile, my name
and lineage
situating myself at the end 
of her continuum.

What you have just read are the introductory poems of my currently unnamed verse novel. I plan on serializing it here, online, sort of like what was done with Charles Dickens’ novels in the 19th century. New chapters will be uploaded biweekly.

Writing the Bones, Entry 2

. . . the Second of October, about 9 of the clock in the morning, Mr. Mavericks Negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her own Countrey language and tune sang very loud and shrill, going out to her, she used a great deal of respect toward me, and willingly would have expressed her grief in English; but I appre- hended it by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to intreat him in her behalf, for that I under- stood before, that she had been a Queen in her own Countrey, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb used towards her by another Negro who was her maid. Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore seeing she would not yield by perswasions to company with a Negro young man he had in his house; he commanded him will’d she nill’d she to go to bed to her, which was no sooner done but she kickt him out again, this she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief.
—John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New England, 1674 Source

This unnamed woman is the subject of my novel. I am haunted by the thought that there has to be more to her than “the cause of her grief.” But the historical record provides nothing and possibly never will. So I decided to take Toni Morrison’s advice and write the book I want to read. Since it is a haunting, I’ll be writing it as a kind of ghost story. However, one person’s ghost is another person’s ancestor. To quote Miriam Makeba:

In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors. Source

But before we start, we must follow protocol and awaken her.

Writing the Bones, Entry 1

Writing a novel is harder than I ever conceived! I’ve written and published books of three books of poetry but those books are full of personal poetry arranged chronologically. They’re linear rather than a cohesive whole like a novel.

When I first got the idea of writing a novel, I spent years typing down whatever came to mind and only casually organized them in Google Docs. Then, being a poet, I decided it had to be a verse novel and/or epics. I started reading to gain a sense of the genre.

I read The Epic of Gilgamesh, the David Ferry translation; Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali; The Epic of Askia Mohammed, etc. After reading Gilgamesh and Sundiata, I came away with a new book idea centered about one of the women mentioned in Sundiata. As a womanist, it was disturbing, to say the least, how rape played a role in both epics but was treated both briefly and casually. I started thinking about how there are no epics where women are centered. So I spent even more time typing out an outline for that future story/book.

I read Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming; tried to read both Derek Walcott’s Omeros and Kwame Dawes’ Prophets. Of the three, Brown Girl Dreaming was the most approachable. The beginning of Omeros contains a poem about the cutting down of trees to make canoes. Have you ever eaten anything that was so good, so rich, you couldn’t finish it and told yourself you’d save it for later but never do; because when you go to eat, you’re still full off of the memory of how good it was? That’s that poem, a portion of which was excerpted here. I think I was too full of that one poem in Omeros to give Prophets the attention it deserves. Plus, by that time, I was burnt out on reading the genre.

That was years ago. Today, literally and figuratively, I am in writer’s mode and writing a verse novel is hard. One of the difficulties I’m encountering is the setting of the novel. It’s set in Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630’s. How to cross the language barrier because their English is not the English of today. Then, there’s my main character, an enslaved woman, unnamed in the historical record, who was probably one of the victims of English privateers (legalized piracy) pillaging the ships of England’s greatest competitor of the time, Spain and it’s settler-colonies in the Caribbean/South America. Because of the relative earliness of her being enslaved, she undoubtedly spoke her mother’s tongue; maybe even picked up a few Spanish words on the brutal trip to what is inexplicably called the New World.

I assumed I would have to build a language for her so we could communicate. More research was called for! I did a Google search for Spanish-African creole. I figured that just like with English, there would be a language created out of the experience of the enslaved and I was right! In Colombia, there’s a region called San Basilio de Palenque. Known as the “first free town in the Americas,” I was delighted to hear about the language the inhabitants speak as the island in the Caribbean my main character was Providence Island, now under the domain of Colombia; even though the language might be dying from underuse, it was a step forward. Or so I thought. Poetry to the rescue:

small stones of spanish skimming
the surface of her speech
the closer to the atlantic
her body was forced

Beauty

Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder
and I be holding beauty
when I glance upon them
theoretically shaping
the future into an afro
centric sharpness
that shook
the white power structure
into confronting
black consciousness
organized and mandated
to dismiss
that old time religion
that said everything in its place
especially the black race.

A new paradigm of blackness
rooted in a communal soliloquy:
ghetto equals colony
and racism is the bastard child
of fascist economies.
Fanon, Malcolm and James
became antidotes
for antiquated theologies
and anti-social pathologies.

In the belly of the imperialistic beast,
in the macro-and-microcosms
of streets and prisons
a new paradigm, a paradise
of struggle
created by ex-soldiers
high school and college students,
whores, pimps, drug dealers
NASA employees,
doctors and number runners
heady, ready and willing.

From Watts to the Congo
white power has gotta go
burn baby burn
no ashes in the urn
time for the tide to turn
and put an end to the yearn.

Discern:

Panther power was here
turned the police into pigs
and nigs into blacks
figuratively burning effigies
with tactics and strategies
that earned them freedom’s mind.

I Represent

I Represent

I represent the oppressed black womb
penetrated too early in its development.
No one takes the time to explain abortion
before I am strapped in the clinic gurney
to have the baby he planted scraped out.
One day, I was watching Dora and the next day
my teacher said I was a statistic. I don’t know.
I just know I’m not a little girl any more.

I represent the oppressed black vagina
smothered under an endless stream of men
who push and push but never take the time
to differentiate me from girl 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,
or even the one they call the bottom.
You only see me to call me names:
whore, trick, bitch.
One day I’ll be free of this stroll
and will only respond
to the name my mother gave me.

I represent the oppressed black woman
former stripper, former whore, former convict
who came through hell and back
yet still exudes sulfur.
Five children but crack obliterated
the memories and names of their fathers.
They look at me when I come home
smelling of a hundred billion sold
and say they’re hungry.
My response, before I close the bedroom door is
so am I, babies, so am I.

I represent the oppressed conscious black woman
who has all of her eyes open to see the world
but yet only inhabits 6 square blocks of the concrete jungle.
She sits at night with her seeds reworking homework lessons
of Christmas, Columbus and colonization.
She transforms the three R’s into righteous revolutionary rebellion.

Sometimes, I am allowed to sit in and participate in all of their lives.
Sometimes, the door is shut either angrily or in the silence of defeat.
Either way, I am still a poet and my pen represents the oppressed.