The new edition of ‘DrumVoices’ honors Amiri at 70
By K. Curtis Lyle
For the St. Louis American
The Spring/Summer/Fall 2005 edition of DrumVoices Revue, East St. Louis poet laureate Eugene Redmond’s important literary, visionary and cultural arts journal, just hit the stands this week. It goes without saying that this is a must-read for anybody remotely interested in what’s happening in the African, African-American and multi-ethnic literary and cultural world. This issue of DrumVoices takes on particular resonance because it celebrates the 70th birthday of Amiri Baraka, and at the same time marks the 40th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.
The edition consists of essays, poems and reflections on Baraka’s influence in American culture and especially his literary influence on black writers. It pays homage to arguably the most influential, incisive, truth-telling, abrasive and controversial American writer of the twentieth century.
Yes, this is a bold statement! Note, I said “writer” when referring to Baraka’s importance, not just “black writer.” This probably makes my statement even more disturbing in some circles.
Baraka is a disturbing person. What makes him thus and cements the power of his literary and cultural force, in my mind, are two absolutely essential elements.
One is the relentless creative political force that gives his work an unaltering connection to people. It’s that simple. Politics is the science of hooking into the minds, emotions and collective aspirations of people. Nobody does it better than Baraka. He knows what people want, and he sometimes even reaches down into the depth of what they need.
The other essential has been strangely overlooked in the numerous analyses and estimations of Baraka’s work, and that is his incredible sense of humor. Baraka is a funny man. The great be-bop comedian and storyteller Lord Buckley called humor the “oil of the soul.” Humor conditions Baraka’s work, makes it pliable and easy to digest even when he’s approaching the most serious topics and making death-defying leaps of logic.
Baraka’s humor allows the healing nature of his work to arrive right on the heals of the constant and politically incorrect use of words like (can’t avoid them, folks) “nigger” and “bitch.” It hurts, but it makes sense. He can use “beast,” “Satan” and “Jesus” in the same sentence and have you laughing your head off. It’s not “ha ha” funny, like Ishmael Reed. It’s “oh shit, I can’t believe he said that, but damn, he ain’t telling no lie” funny.
Tupac Shakur once said, “I ain’t the best rapper in the world, but I’m the realest.” I think we can apply this aphorism to Baraka. But it’s his incredile sense of humor that causes his wild mouth to the jump from language to language, culture to culture and person to person without regard to the strictures that limit most of us.
An example can be found in the poem “Masked Angel Costume: The Sayings of Mantan Moreland.” Mantan Moreland was the archetypal shufflin’ negro of early Hollywood cinema. He was Chinese detective Charlie Chan’s right-hand man, chauffer and flunky. Charlie Chan was himself a reprehensible cinematic stereotype. Mantan Moreland was therefore a flunky’s flunky.
Somehow, Baraka is able to turn this image on its head and create wisdom, power of observation and keen political perception. Mantan says, “Dead people and live people should not mix,” or “Cemeteries, Funeral Parlors, Morgues, do not need you while you alive,” or my favorite, “Wait until the shooting stops, then wait for witnesses. Leave as soon as it’s safe.”
He plays with the desperate absurdity of black American life and let’s us ingest it with humor, so we won’t go stark raving mad. In the five quick lines of “Heir of the Dog,” he shows us “the crazed, amazed negro” who loses the little mind he has when he finds out that an animal rights organization has a larger budget than the NAACP. It’s what we call laughing to keep from crying.
The Yoruba are an incredibly sophisticated people who live in what today is Nigeria. Their moral universe, which we would call ideas, is composed of beings who constantly bring them messages filled with vital force. They call this force Ashe’, or the power-to-make-things-happen. Ashe’ is an enabling light that is made available to special men and women. Baraka is one of these special persons.
He has looked seriously into all the twentieth century philosophic and artistic systems and found them all wanting. Like his musician heroes, Monk, Coltrane, Ornette and Ayler, he trumped all these systems by using the vehicle of hard intelligence and protective love in the theatre of memory.
At 70, he’s testifying the human heart on soprano, tenor and baritone.
He’s still all dressed-up with someplace to go.
Happy Birthday, Baraka.
