I Dreamt I Was in Heaven

– The Rampage of the

Rufus Buck Gang

By: Leonce Gaiter

 

Rufus Buck gang. Rufus Buck was half-black and half Creek Indian. The rest of the gang was composed of one African-American, and three full-blooded Creeks.

 

In the summer of 1895, terror gripped the Indian Territories (today's Oklahoma).  The youthful, multi-racial Rufus Buck gang was on the rampage, terrorizing and assaulting anyone in its path.  Their goal: to expel whites from Indian Territory.  Gang leader Rufus Buck was half-black and half Creek Indian.  The rest of the gang was composed of one African-American, and three full-blooded Creeks.

The idea of a multi-racial gang banding together in 1895 may seem strange, but turn-of-the-century Indian Territory was a multi-racial place.  A new novel by Leonce Gaiter entitled I Dreamt I Was in Heaven – The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang explores the Buck gang rampage amidst the rainbow of ethnicities on both sides of the law in the lawless Indian Territory.

"I had first read about the gang almost twenty years ago," says author Gaiter, whose novel Bourbon Street was published by Carroll & Graf and whose nonfiction has appeared in publications from "The New York Times" to "The Huffington Post."  "The story immediately grabbed me.  The novelty of a 19th century multi-racial gang that some say were teenagers seemed remarkable.  It was also remarkable to me that their aim was to end the theft of Indian Territory.  They were fighting back.  You don't hear many stories in American history of the black and brown victims fighting back."

With further research, Gaiter learned more about the complex relationship between black freedmen and the Creek Indians dating back one hundred years.  In 1895, black freedmen towns dotted the Indian Territory.  Blacks were lawmen as well as outlaws.  The novel portrays the famous outlaw Cherokee Bill (aka Crawford Goldsby), who was half-black and devoted to the African-American grandmother who raised him. One of the Territory's principal deputy U.S. marshals was a black man named Bass Reeves.  The Buck gang's first victim was a black lawman.

"Once you get into it," Gaiter says, "and start reading about Indian outlaws like Ned Christie being hunted down by the lawmen of the Indian Creek Lighthorse, the infamous white 'Hanging Judge' Isaac Parker working directly with the black U.S. deputy marshal Bass Reeves as they hunt and prosecute, black, white and red outlaws—it's kind of dizzying.  And then you add the fact that more and more whites were flocking to the Territories.  That's because the U.S. government was instituting policies that would guarantee that the Indians would lose their land.  It was just an amazing period, and the story of the Rufus Buck gang reflects a large swath of it."

 Gaiter hopes that the novel will help loosen up African-Americans' view of their own history.  "We've fallen into this ditch in which our history is defined by others and limited to views of us as saints and victims.  We are infinitely more than that.  I think it's dehumanizing to accept such a limitation that's been slapped on us by others.  The Buck Gang was a product of its time, and they were no saints.  Their cause was just, but their methods were abhorrent.  They are, however, a great piece of history and a fantastic window onto an incredibly compelling and tragic American era."

__________________________

The Story Behind the Story:

“I Dreamt I Was in Heaven,”

by Leonce Gaiter

Dee Dee Bridgewater:

An Alchemist of Sound

Dee Dee Bridgewater possesses the ability to hollow you out and haunt your insides with an eerily magnetic timbre, the likes of which are not exclusive to her but manifest more often than not in echo chambers, the vaulted ceilings of old sanctuaries, and whispering walls – everywhere else but inside your average person.  Her voice, a Pandora’s box of musicality from which Garvey’s ghost escapes whenever she is inclined to cast the wide net of her range, is a living testament to the soul shaking angst riddled wails of mentor, Abbey Lincoln – a lionized jazz vocalist who arguably pioneered a niche for the fringe performer and just happened to be married to Max Roach. A beast of the ethereal, the tonal quality common to much of Dee Dee Bridgewater’s catalog is one that renders the female jazz vocal to a narcotic substance just potent enough that the mind’s eye imagines her breath perennially flecked with the pungent caramel of burnt sugar and the ear would like nothing more than to languish indefinitely within a sustained note.

She sometimes manifests as a seasoned actress who just happens to enjoy singing her lines more than saying them, which lends a lot to her appeal as a live performer who can actually play to an audience as opposed to simply playing for them. Less of an octave addict and more of a transformer, Bridgewater shines in recordings and performances where she melts with or without cause into another person, place, or thing entirely. The lack of predictability with which she delivers is one that has both frustrated and enthused fans and critics, who would much rather swaddle her in academic angst and leave her frozen in time wherever she was when they first fell in love with her. The problem with that is that Dee Dee Bridgewater has never fit inside a box and her catalog does not suggest she is even remotely apologetic about it. Mercurial and chameleonic, she remains fervently rooted on Broadway and in the preservation of jazz, but anyone suspecting she might be disinclined to don another hat has yet to truly listen to her. A thrill-seeking alchemist of sound and song, she can and will do just about anything. With jazz as controversial a label as it has ever been amongst those associated with the genre, Bridgewater has spent her career dancing around the box, performing on top of it, but never quite going inside herself. Earning international acclaim as a performer, she may inadvertently have helped set the standard for rising artists who feel their work is bigger than just one word and the graying nostalgia that comes with it.

Dee Dee Bridgewater was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Flint, Michigan where her father worked as a trumpeter and music instructor. At the age of seven, she announced to her parents that she wanted to be an internationally renowned jazz singer. She sang in clubs around Michigan as a teen, before attending college there and later in Illinois during the late ’60s, where she toured the Soviet Union and met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, with whom she married and had her first child, Tulani – the eldest of three. Dee Dee Bridgewater’s touring career began in the early ’70s with a move to New York City and a stint in the Thad Jones – Mel Lewis Orchestra. By 1975 she had performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, won a Tony Award for her performance as Glinda The Good Witch on Broadway in The Wiz, and released her first solo album. One year later, she won a Grammy for her performance on Broadway, when The Wiz took home Best Musical Show Album. “Love and Peace…”,  a later collaboration with Horace Silver, one of her idols, also earned her a Grammy nomination during the ’80s.  Her other theatrical forays include Carmen, Cosmopolitan Greetings, Black Ballad, and Cabaret. After touring France in 1984 with Sophisticated Ladies, Bridgewater decided to put down roots, relocating to Paris by 1986 after becoming disenchanted with the climate for jazz in the states. By the ’90s, Bridgewater had played Billie Holiday in Lady Day, performed at The Montreux Jazz Festival. She later won a Laurence Olivier Award, was inducted into the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, receiving the Award of Arts and Letters in France, and named and honorary Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. To date, her solo discography stands around fifteen releases. Her first solo release came in 1975, likely to a decent amount of fanfare, with Afro Blue. 

Download 01_Afro_Blue.mp3

It is interesting to note that just one year later, at the height of the disco craze, Bridgewater countered with an album entitled Lonely Disco Dancer. Likely a byproduct of her time as a teen in pop and rock cover bands, Bridgewater channels Deniece Williams and Brenda Russell in a performance that suggests she could have been as much of a fixture on the r&b and pop radio charts as her vocal peers of that era.  Considering the allure that the party era presented, it is interesting that with the very left of center deviation from the dynamic jazz vocal people expected from Bridgewater, she never got caught in an avenue for career success that could have yielded notoriety and wealth much more painlessly than the widely inaccessible hyper-intellectualized art house experience that jazz has often been portrayed to be – much to the chagrin of a less discerning public who in the end usually just want to dance.  While Bridgewater’s opinion of that era is not readily available, the album’s title is a bit ironic by itself.  While she has managed to carve a permanent place in the pantheon of jazz vocalists, she may never have had the same career longevity, albeit hard fought, that she has had so far afield from the pop charts.

Those albums followed a guest feature on Charles Sullivan’s Genesis, released in 1974 on Strata East, highlighted by her performance of “Now I’ll Sleep”, a suicidal ballad renowned for its ability to cut to the heart of everything that is perfectly imperfect about the human experience with a disturbing finesse.  The Down Beat notes preceding the full review of Inner City Records’ 1976 reissue of Charles Sullivan’s Genesis discuss her pathos less and focus more on the method of a very deliberate and painfully evocative performance; “Ms. Bridgewater…reveals in her voice an actress’ intensity as well as purity of tone and flexibility of intonation.”  Bridgewater notes “Now I’ll Sleep is the one instance where I would hope that no one would be able to identify with my song, but I know that such is not the case. I believe the song describes itself.”  In doing so, the emotion it carries is one so familiar to anyone who has experienced the profundity of pain that it manages to normalize the idea of suicide in a way that suddenly makes the desire to die understandable.  About Bridgewater, critic Elliot Meadow writes in the liner notes, “Her performance on the frighteningly poignant Now I’ll Sleep is simply exquisite. She imparts all the deep sorrow the lyric suggests. Indeed, this song should be considered a classic of its kind – rarely has such emotion spiraling out from human despair been better captured.”  Her accuracy in putting the performance to bed is due in large part to the joy she infuses into each aching phrase – the same joy that comes by the fistful in her recording of “Little B’s Poem,” as she flits playfully across the register.  A very basic respect for the nuance of emotion, ultimately setting her apart from your average singer and definitely giving credence to the idea that disco, while fun, was far too short-lived and myopic for a singer of her caliber.

 

 

Exposed to jazz at an early age by virtue of her parentage, her equally strong attraction to the red clay of the American south during her childhood was likely a manifestation of epic memory destined to come full circle with the research, recording, and eventual release of her album Red Earth, some decades later.  The album was created in Mali, where Bridgewater was doing musical and personal research into her own African origins.  What she came back with was a body of work that gave her the space to drape her voice across continents to serve a communal dish that bridge the gap between the place of her birth and her original place of ancestry in a way that even genetic inquiry may not have been able to satisfy.  Her view of the experience focused specifically on how sure she was that she had arrived at her ancestral home; the red earth a comfort in an otherwise strange land.  The transfusion of long fermented pain from mother to child at the births of infants produced by the black experience endemic to American soil is exhibited in Red Earth’s interpretation of Nina Simone’s “Four Women” and may have been the catalyst for Bridgewater’s Eleanora Fagan, an effective and equally evocative channeling of Billie Holiday, a woman whose voice drove hurt like a bombastic hoodlum in an expensive car and whose life has inspired Bridgewater’s theatrical work.  The complete opposite of a dicta-bird, Bridgewater avoids a caricaturish performance reliant upon mimicry of Holiday’s unmistakable vocal tone, opting instead to affect her attitude and performance style in tandem with her own vocal prowess, most strikingly on two of Holiday’s greatest recordings, “Don’t Explain” and “Strange Fruit”.  Dee Dee Bridgewater imbues the disgust of a woman scorned by the sour taste in her mouth, as she sings a séance for Billie Holiday; the unfortunate chanteuse whose life and signature drawl have lent to an impenetrable iconography. Other tributes have included Ella Fitzgerald and mentor, Abbey Lincoln.

While Bridgewater has occasionally faced criticism for the ways in which her music has evolved, particularly as she began to spend more time in the worlds of soul and American standards, the suggestion of mediocrity is generally inadmissible in any conversation of her larger body of work.  A proponent of personal evolution, Bridgewater notes to All About Jazz, “I want to move forward – To not go backwards, but progress.  Constantly.”  If nothing else, that in and of itself is the purpose of jazz, to avoid being one thing in particular at any point, ever.  The fluidity of curiosity and exploration lies at the root of a genre, whose acrobatic vocal legacy has been charged to her and a handful of others, with the expectation that they will not only promote, but also protect it.  What she protects most is the complexity of emotion and the idea that that concept, amongst few others, is the root of great performance onstage and in the recording studio.  A scion for the diversity of experience and sound in avenues of life, Dee Dee Bridgewater produces a performance that forces every breath from her mouth in tribute to her musical forebears and acts as master class to her devoted followers.

Words by Karas Lamb

The Norton Girault Literary Prize

 

Old Dominion University

The MFA Creative Writing Program and Barely South Review

are pleased to announce

The Norton Girault Literary Prize

Inaugural 2012 Competition is now open

(annual prize will alternate among Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction genres)

The Norton Girault Literary Prize will be offered in 2012 for FICTION– one prize will go to a single short story up to 25 pages (double-spaced).  The winning story will receive $1,000 and publication in Barely South Review. One honorable mention will also be selected for publication.

The Norton Girault Literary Prize is named after Norton Girault

http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/32nd/girault.htm

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/odu-literary-festival-words-still-matter-91yearold-writer

and we are delighted to announce the

Judge for the 2012 Norton Girault Literary Prize in Fiction:

 

Cristina García

Cristina García is an award-winning novelist, and the author of five novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, and The Lady Matador’s Hotel, recently published by Scribner. García has edited two anthologies, Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Two works for young readers, The Dog Who Loved the Moon, and I Wanna Be Your Shoebox were published in 2008. A collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death, was published in 2010. Her newest work, Dreams of Significant Girls, is a young adult novel set in a Swiss boarding school in the 1970s.

García’s work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into fourteen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. Recently, Garcia was a Visiting Professor at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin and teaches at Texas Tech University most spring semesters. This past fall, Garcia was a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami and will serve as University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University-San Marcos from 2012-14.

 

Competition Rules and Requirements:

• Entries may be sent by mail or electronically.

By Mail: Send entries with official entry form and entry fee to Luisa A. Igloria, Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program, BAL 5000, English Department, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529 (please mark envelope “Norton Girault Literary Prize”);

Electronic Submission: Send entries through Barely South Review’s page on Submittable:  http://barelysouth.submishmash.com/submit
The prize competition is open to all writers who write in English, except MFA Creative Writing students at Old Dominion University. No translated works will be accepted.

All submissions must be original and previously unpublished (print, blog, or web publications included).

Format and Manuscript Length: A clean, typewritten or computer-processed (12 point font, double-spaced, one inch margins all around) copy of the entry must be submitted. Entry must be paginated, and have one (1) title page with no identifying author information. Each entry must not exceed 25 pages in length.

No author identification must appear on any of the pages of the manuscript entry.

Each entry must be accompanied by a completed and signed Official Entry Form. Entries submitted without this Form will be disqualified.

Entrants may submit more than one story to the competition, as long as an entry fee of $25 accompanies each individual submission.

Reading fee: $25.00; If you are mailing in your entry, submit with a check or money order for $25 (US dollars), made out to OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY; on the memo line, please write “Barely South Review/Literary Prize 2012”.

Optional: SASE for contest results.

Manuscripts will not be returned; they will be recycled.

Electronic Submission AND Postmark deadline:  29 February, 2012; results announced around the end of April 2012.
In the event that the judge does not deem any submissions worthy of the prize, Barely South Review reserves the right to extend the call for manuscripts or to cancel the award in a given year.

 

DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL NORTON GIRAULT LITERARY PRIZE ENTRY GUIDELINES AND ENTRY FORM.

Able Muse Write Prize

 

 

Able Muse Write Prize

 (for Poetry & Flash Fiction) -- 2012

 

(2011 Results HERE) 

 $500 prize for the best poem, and $500 prize for the best short story (flash fiction), plus publication in Able Muse (the print journal).
Finalists in each category will also be considered for publication.

Entry deadline: February 15, 2012

Final Judge - Poetry:

John Drury

 

Final Judge - Fiction:

Ellen Sussman

 

Guidelines:

• Blind Judging by the Final Judges (John Drury for poetry, Ellen Sussman for flash fiction).

• Initial screening by the Able Muse Editors.

• Entries may not be previously published.

• Simultaneous submissions accepted as long as we're immediately notified if your work is accepted elsewhere.

• Unlimited entries per person for one or both categories

• For poetry entries, all styles are welcome (metrical or free verse).

• For poetry entries, each entry may contain 1 to 5 poems maximum, but all the poems combined should not exceed 10 pages per entry.

• For fiction entries, each entry may contain 1 to two stories maximum (each story should be flash fiction/short-short-short under 1,500 words each, typed double-spaced).

• We prefer online entries, however, paper/snail mail entry is available for those who insist on the traditional submission method.

• If you wish to enter in both cateogries or if you enter more than once in one or both categories, then a separate entry fee and submission form must be completed for each entry.

• If you're entering by paper/snail mail, the manuscripts cannot be returned so, do not send us your only copies.

• For paper/snail mail entries, include an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to receive the announcement of the winners.

• The contests will be judged blind by the final judge, so:
  • Author's name should only appear on cover page and nowhere else.
  • Initial screening will be done by the editors of Able Muse.
  1. The final judges will received anonymized manuscripts (five to ten each depending and the number of total entries and their quality).
  2. The final judge will be instructed to disqualify any work that he recognizes. The entry fee the work thus disqualified will be refunded.

• Include on your cover page ONLY:
  1. the category of your submission— i.e. "poetry contest" or "fiction contest"
  2. the poems/stories titles
  3. the total number of lines for all poems combined / total word count for all stories combined. (For deriving line or word count, do not include, blank lines, the poem or story title, epigraphs in the line/word count.)
  4. the poet's/writer's name
  5. address
  6. phone number, and
  7. email address.

• For paper/snail mail entries, send manuscripts in duplicate.

Final Judge (Poetry): John Drury

Final Judge (Flash Fiction): Ellen Sussman

Entry Methods:

1. Preferred method is our online entry form—
   1. DO NOT type or copy and paste your entry in the poem/fiction text box. Rather, upload your submission file from the upload field (accepted formats are: Text, RTF, Word, Wordperfect, PDF, HTML).
   2. Only send one file attachment with 1 to 5 poems or 1 to 2 stories in a single file, with the cover page prepared as described in the blind judging section above (do NOT attach a separate file for each poem or story! And the cover letter can be included in the same file as the poems or stories, but in the introductory page(s).)
   3. There should be no identification in the section of the manuscript pages that contain the poems or stories as described in the blind judging section above.
   4. Enter at http://www.ablemuse.com/enter-contest online.

2. Second favorite entry method is via e-mail—
   1. Follow the instructions for the online submission method in (1) above, in addition to the following:
   2. Again, do not type your submission in the body of the email. Rather, attach your submission file to the email (accepted formats are: Text, RTF, Word, Wordperfect, PDF, HTML).
   3. The subject of the email should be: "<Your Name>: Poetry Contest" for poetry entries, or "<Your Name>: Fiction Contest" for fiction entries.
   4. Email your entry to submission@ablemuse.com without any identification in the manuscript file itself as described in the blind judging section above.

3. Least favorite entry method is paper by snail mail—
   1. The manuscript should be without any identification as explained in the blind judging section above.
   2. The cover page should be prepared as explained in the blind judging section above (on a separate sheet of paper, included with the poems or stories submitted).
   3. The manuscript should be in duplicate as explained in the blind judging section above.
   4. Send your entry to:

      Able Muse Review
      (Poetry or Flash Fiction) Contest
      467 Saratoga Avenue #602
      San Jose, CA 95129
      USA

Entry Fees:

• $15 for each entry which should contain a minimum of 1 poem, a maximum of 5 poems, but all the poems combined should not exceed 10 pages per entry).

• $15 for each entry minimum which should contain a minmum of 1 story, a maximum of 2 stories (stories should be flash fiction/short-short-short under 1,500 words each, typed double-spaced).

• No matter how you choose to enter (online or email or snail mail) you may choose to pay:
  1. Online at http://www.ablemuse.com/enter-contest (or right below!), OR,
  2. By check: Able Muse Review, and sent to the contest address indicated above.
  3. To enable us to match your payment to your entry, be sure to indicate the name you entered with (i.e. your pen name, etc), if it's different from the one under which payment was made, and this applies for online as well as check payment by snail mail.

Pay Entry Fee & Enter Contest Now:

 

ENTER THE ABLE MUSE WRITE PRIZE CONTEST NOW:

After payment, submit your poetry or fiction online at:
http://www.ablemuse.com/enter-contest .
Or, enter by email/snail mail as explained above:

 

Call for New African Writing:

The Second Phase

Posted on February 10, 2012

The first phase of the New African Writing initiative is almost over, with fifteen of the best entries selected for review. We now announce the start of the second phase, and for writers who did not get a chance to submit the first time, this is another opportunity. Kachifo Limited and ABC Literary Cafe once again call on emerging African writers to send in their submissions.

The submission instructions are same as before. Send in your short stories of not more than 5,000 words to shortstories@kachifo.com, and include your name, email address and phone number. Please note that nonfiction entries and stories over 5,000 words will not be considered. Also, writers are not allowed to send in more than one entry; where they do, we will accept the first and disregard any others. The deadline for this phase is midnight on the 19th of February. From the entries submitted in this second phase, another fifteen of the best will be selected and critiqued by our panel of esteemed writers. Writers who sent in submissions for the first phase are free to participate again, provided they send in a different entry.

New African Writing is aimed at promoting and showcasing new writing out of Africa, and as part of this initiative, Doreen Baingana will be hosting a session at The Life House on February 17, where she will talk about writing and give writing tips and lessons for emerging writers, read from her work and answer questions from the audience. Doreen won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the AWP Award in Short Fiction for her book, Tropical Fish. She was also a two-time finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to join us for the first phase of readings at 6 pm today at The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, off Younis Bashorun Street, off Ajose Adeogun Street, Victoria Island Lagos. See you there!

Docu-Drama On

Trial Of Black Slave

Accused Of

Burning Down Montreal

Gets DVD/VOD Release

News by Tambay | January 30, 2012

 

Intriguing docu-drama here, I profiled several months ago, with an unfamiliar narrative, and one I'd very much like to see, and will now have an opportunity to since it's being released on DVD and digitally via iTunes next week.

Here's the story to recap:

Black Hands - Trial of the Arsonist Slave investigates... the story of Marie-Josèphe Angélique, a Black slave accused of burning down Montreal in 1734. After an epic trial, this untameable slave is tortured and sentenced to death. But was she really guilty of this crime or was she the victim of a bigger conspiracy? Why this voluntary amnesia about this unknown page of Canadian history? A fascinating documentary that powerfully mixes interviews with historians and theatre re-enactments, filmed in the same style as Dogville by Lars Von Trier.

There's a feature-length narrative film to be made of this particular story; but don't hold your breath though.

Produced by Bel Ange Moon Productions which was founded by sisters (and black Canadians) Tetchena Bellange and Bianca Bellange, the docudrama has played at several international film festivals since last summer.

The production company announced last night that the film will be available on DVD and on iTunes on February 7th, which is next week Tuesday. 

Price? $14.99, so not too bad for a slice of *forgotten* black history.

Watch the trailer below:

Watch Feature

Abstractumentary,

"Natasha

– Portrait of an Urban Poet"

Video by Tambay | January 10, 2012

 

Harold Smith is a self-described "urban expressionist painter," socially conscious and jazz-influenced.

This is his first feature film, titled Natasha – Portrait of an Urban Poet, what he calls an "abstractumentary" - abstract-documentary style, juxtaposing intimate interviews, dramatic performances, and archival footage. He chose Natasha (full name Natasha Ria Rl-Scari) as a subject because, as he states, "I believe the work of Natasha Ria El - Scari is critical to recognizing and understanding the dialogue and deceptions of a supposedly post-racial America. I see Natasha as a fear less poet whose work is painterly in its presentation... delivering the call-and-response fervor and social tradition of the Black Arts movement. She is a voice of 21st century urban consciousness."

Natasha Ria El -Scari is a black feminist writer, Cave Canem fellow, and educator. Her poetry, academic papers, and personal essays have been published in anthologies and literary journals. She has opened for and introduced many great writers and activists, and has been featured at a host of universities and venues nationwide.

Harold's abstractumentary has screened publicly late last year at the Maysles Theater in NYC, and the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco.

Harold has uploaded the entire 90-minute film to YouTube, and it's embedded below for you to watch:

What she said

By Kelly Baker Josephs

 

Conversations with Paule Marshall,

ed. James C. Hall and Heather Hathaway

(University Press of Mississippi,

ISBN 978-1-60473-743-1, 240 pp)

 

Although she has won several prestigious awards, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (the “Genius Award”), a Gugghenheim Fellowship, and grants from the Ford Foundation and the US National Endowment for the Arts, Paule Marshall is a relatively unsung word warrior. This new collection of interviews with the Barbadian-American writer, part of the “Literary Conversations” Series from the University Press of Mississippi, signals some recognition of Marshall as a major figure worthy of study across time.

In Conversations With Paule Marshall, editors James C. Hall and Heather Hathaway have provided a truly necessary resource for anyone interested in Marshall’s work and her growth and development as a writer in the more than five decades since the publication of her first novel, the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959). There is a handful of other book-length studies of Marshall’s writing, and a few more on her work alongside one or two other major writers (for example, co-editor Hathaway published Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude McKay and Paule Marshall in 1999), but this volume presents Marshall primarily in her own words. Interviews, however, can be a problematic resource. I am always ambivalent about how much weight to put on a writer’s words and life story. I greedily consume details about a writer’s travels or participation in writing “circles,” because these somehow seem like objective influences on his or her work, but I am hesitant to read too much into information about health, habits, or even family life, because my primary focus is always the art rather than the artist. I am wary of biography; how much of it can I use to understand a writer’s work?

Because “the work” (as Marshall sometimes refers to her body of writing in later interviews) is my focus, my review speaks from this place of academic interest in Marshall. But, of course, there are other reasons for reading such a collection. Although not quite as beautifully phrased as the prose she often laboriously struggles over before publishing, Marshall’s ideas in these interviews are intriguing, and the longer interviews tease out their complexities. I do not imagine the collection will be of interest to anyone who has not read any of Marshall’s work, but readers familiar with one or two of her novels will find much worthy of reading here — particularly Marshall’s accounts of her growth as a writer.

For example, there is the story of her experience with her first book contract, which she recounts in a 1984 interview with Sally Lodge for Publisher’s Weekly. Marshall, thrilled with her first contract for Brown Girl, Brownstones, and “thinking that the world had said ‘yes,’ and that maybe I did have something going for me,” has a chance meeting with Bennett Cerf, co-founder of Random House. He tells her, “Well, you know, nothing usually happens with this kind of book.” In a scene that mirrors the climax of Brown Girl, Brownstones, Marshall was plunged from the exhilaration of her emergent success to the devastation of marginalisation. With his offhand and possibly kindly meant words, Cerf indicates to Marshall that “even though my book was going to be published and the publisher found some literary merit in it, I was not really a part of the literary community.”

And Cerf’s prediction was self-fulfilling. Marshall’s first novel, while critically well received, was not successful on any financial scale. Tellingly, this collection of interviews starts with pieces dated after the publication of her second novel, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969). The first interview is really a conversation, a lengthy edited transcription of Marshall’s visit to Hiram Hadyn’s class at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. Hadyn was Marshall’s editor at Random House, which perhaps explains the hint of condescension towards her throughout the conversation. Given my own near-adoration of Marshall’s work, this was for me a disconcerting way to begin the collection, but the editors arranged the interviews chronologically, and this particular conversation with Haydn’s class is one of the collection’s highlights because it was previously unpublished (and only “available” via the special collections archive at the Stanford University Libraries). Still, there are gems in the conversation for those interested in Marshall’s development as a writer: in particular, the freshness of The Chosen Place, The Timeless People for Marshall at that time, and her tacit conclusion that its publication solidified her reputation as a writer, add much to our understanding of the place of the novel in the arc of her career.

The collection is uneven, but usefully so. There are interviews that mirror direct transcription, with the standard arrangement of names or initials to indicate speakers and reflect a dialogue. Then there are those that are formatted as essays, with heavy quoting of Marshall’s words from the “hidden” interview. Some pieces are overly academic in tone, and others are more casual and quite intimate, written for general interest publications like Essence. Some are extended interviews; others are so short as to make the reader wonder at their inclusion. Thus, as a whole, the collection provides not only different facets of Marshall herself, but also of her readers, critics, and general intended audience.

Most interesting is the book’s other previously unpublished piece, a lengthy conversation with Hall and Hathaway from 2001 which, although it is the penultimate piece in the collection, serves as a mirror bookend for the Haydn class conversation. This is a much more refreshing piece than the opening interview. It is clear that Hall and Hathaway have spent enormous amounts of time and energy with Marshall’s work (Hall going even as far back as her writings when she was a reporter for the magazine Our World, in the mid 1950s), and are therefore more able — and willing — to coax interesting and useful information from her.

Of course, the interview is also better because by this point Marshall herself is more mature and sure of herself as a writer, as an established artist. And between Haydn’s interview in 1970 and Hall and Hathaway’s in 2001, readers can trace Marshall’s development throughout the collection. I am not sure why the editors included the book’s final interview, which falls after their own piece. Yes, it is conducted much later, in 2009, and covers Marshall’s latest book, Triangular Road (2009), thereby making it possible to say the entire volume covers four decades of interviews; but it is fairly short, seems an afterthought, and is a bit of a letdown after the careful consideration of Marshall’s work in the previous piece. This, again, is one of the disadvantages of the chronological approach of the collection. But as the volume traces Marshall’s life and life’s work, there seems no other appropriate organisation.

There are no large, headline-worthy revelations in Conversations with Paule Marshall. Like Marshall’s work itself, the interviews build on each other to create a picture of a steady wordsmith, one who is meticulous about her craft and dedicated to certain themes. Whenever one sits down to a collection of interviews with an artist (as I am sure can be seen in the other collections in the “Literary Conversation” series) there are bound to be repetitions and contradictions. With Marshall, there are fewer of the latter, but several of the former. However, such repetitions, rather than distracting, are strangely gratifying. They reinforce for readers that all her writings are deliberately connected; that even as she experiments with different perspectives, approaches, methods, and directions, in the twenty-first century Marshall is still meticulously exploring the issues of community and culture, roots and reconciliation that she so carefully represents in Brown Girl, Brownstones.

•••

The Caribbean Review of Books, November 2011

Kelly Baker Josephs is an assistant professor of English at York College, City University of New York, managing editor of Small Axe, and editor of sx salon.

Black Women of Brazil

Black Women of Brazil is a photographic and informational blog featuring a diverse array of Brazilian Women of African descent. The women are models, singers, rappers, dancers, actresses as well as politicians, activists, journalists, athletes and common everyday people from the Federative Republic of Brazil. The women range the gamut of phenotypes in terms of skin color, hair texture and facial features.

 

CAMILA PITANGA

 

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Camila Pitanga on people questioning her blackness: "It’s as violent as if I was barred from a restaurant or a hotel because of my color."

 

 

Having captured the hearts of millions of Brazilians with her portrayals of several memorable characters in Brazil’s ever popular novelas, Camila Pitanga has earned her wings as a top actress and one of the most visible black actresses on the air. Her success is the fruit of hard work, an early start (appearing in the film Quilombo at age 6 in 1984) and having a famous father couldn’t have hurt (father Antonio Pitanga is a long-time actor). Of her role as Rose, an ex-domestic in the novela, Cama de Gato, Pitanga says: “I identify myself with Rose because she is a fighter and I have this reference in my family. My father is a man of humble origins from Bahia, he was a mailman and it was the arts that created his identity. Rose will not become an artist but she has a dignity that I identify with.” 

Camila’s mother, Vera Manhães, was also an actress. Having two acting parents partially explains how Camila began so her career at such a young age. At age 12 she began studying theatre and earned her first role in a television mini-series, Sex Appeal, in 1993 at the age of 15. Since then, she hasn’t turned back, being a consistent presence on a number of popular novelas including 1995’s A Próxima Vítima, a series that portrayed the first middle-class black family in the history of Brazilian television. This was also a series in which she worked with her father, Antonio. She has also appeared in 1997’s Malhação, Pecado Capital (1998). She would portray her first protagonist in 2001’s Porto dos Milagres. Other career highlights include 2003’s Mulheres Apaixonadas in which she portrayed a neurosurgeon and Paraíso Tropical (2007), in which she portrayed the prostitute Bebel, a role that screenwriter  Gilberto Braga didn’t think she could pull off. Pitanga interpreted Bebel brilliantly in a role that but that would ultimately catapult her into sex symbol status and win her numerous awards.

 

 

Camila in her role as Bebel in Paraíso Tropical 

 

Pitanga is also not afraid to engage in discussions about the struggle of Afro-Brazilian actors and the question of race in general in regards to Brazil. Here are her thoughts on a number of questions posed to her.

 

How are you, Camila Pitanga, as a woman and black, in a country where racism exists in a veiled form?

 

In a country where racism, albeit in a veiled way, exists, I consider myself a privileged person, because my father, even in an era where prejudice was even worse, managed to educate us with the ethical principles that I intend to pass on to my daughter. He is my greatest example of overcoming and perseverance in life.

 

 

(In Brazil), November 20th is the National Day of Black Consciousness ... For you, this is a special date?

 

Of course! I'll never forget the year that I celebrated this day with my father at a beautiful event that he directed and we had the presence of the great leader Nelson Mandela.

 

You and Taís Araújo were the protagonists in the novelas Cama de Gato and Viver a Vida, respectively. Does it feel like a special moment for black artists on television?

 

I think it's a great achievement; however, I will point out that a full and historical achievement when a black person occupies the position of protagonist and the fact doesn’t generate more discussion or reports in the press. What I mean is: when this is so natural that no notices it as an exception but as a mirror of our reality.

 

How do you analyze the space of blacks in the arts, especially in TV and movies? Do you believe, like most, that there is a lack of good roles for blacks, but only the stereotypes (domestics, thief, drug dealer ...)?

 

I believe that progress had been made and today the blacks stand out in important roles. I've acted in leading roles as a doctor and a model. Tais Araujo is portraying her third protagonist, we have the names of great black actors who have prominent roles in film and TV, like my brother Rocco Pitanga, Lázaro Ramos, Aílton Graça, among other important actors.

Camila and her brother Rocco re-create a photo of their parents Antonio and Vera

 

Your brother Rocco said he does not raise the black flag of the movement so directly. And you? How do you deal with the issue, since you are one of the black actresses with more visibility and respect from Brazil?

 

I've had opportunity to talk about it in an interview I gave to you. I consider myself active in the pro-black movement. I repudiate any form of prejudice, discrimination and aggression not only against blacks but against women, children, slave labor, etc. I believe that exercising social function is a choice of citizenship, regardless of the profession that the person occupies. I understand that my profession creates a focus of more attention and it’s good to have that I have to defend the causes that I believe in.

 

Over the years, Camila has also had to deal with an issue that many black Brazilians deal with on a daily basis, particularly those that possess a lighter skin tone: the question of identity. Camila also addressed this issue:

It may be strange, but sometimes I'm embarrassed for not having remarkable stories of racism in my life. As much as I insist on reaffirming my black roots, people always think the opposite. It's very uncomfortable and it is as terrible as the most pure prejudice. From the moment I became known to the general public, the situation became even more evident. I'm used to being stopped in the streets by people who find it strange the fact that my skin is light, my features are aquiline and my hair straight. They ask why I insist on saying that I am black being "so cute"*. It's absurd. It’s as violent as if I was barred from a restaurant or a hotel because of my color. I am very like my mother, the former model Vera Lúcia Manhães, who has my color. My father, Antonio Pitanga, is black**. There were times when I was very saddened by this attitude, but today I face this more naturally. I don’t care, for example, the comments that I heard after being on cover of Raça Brasil (magazine). Some fans wrote and said that they did not understand the fact of me being interviewed by a publication directed toward blacks. I repeat: I'm black.

 

* - This verbal exchange is common for black Brazilians of all skin tones
** - I'm intrigued by Camila pointing to only her father as black. Although it appears that her mother, former model and actress Vera Lúcia Manhães,  may been lighter-skinned when she was younger (see photo above with Antonio), today she is quite dark-skinned. 

Camila seated next to her mother, Vera.