THURSDAY
coming into closure oon whats been a rough week, 1 more workshop and its collapse time
both presentations seem to have gone well yesterday, project advance was most challenging
an hour of motivational speaking basically, but it went well, bunch of teachers, thats my world
and they were easy on me, i told them my goal was to do this w/as little preparation as possible
they could relate to that,
but it was the edwidge presentation that came from the heart me and edwidge
go all the way back and she comes out of that iterary hoodoo school or i
guess in her case literary voodoo so i gave her the full monty so to speak
i brought out the conch and i put the bells on, i considered the kalimba but decided that was overkill
i had planned to really throw down with this im gon sing your praise refrain at the end,
had practiced it til it was wicked strong and going to bring the house down, but when i did the
comeforth bit she came forth and walked up on stage & stood there, it kinda threw me off my game
what i should have done is just stopped at that point, bowed to her and let her have the stage
instead of sticking to the plan i should have improvised and just shown respect
i bowed to her before i went on, she bowed back, respect respect, one literary practitioner to the other
i particularly liked that dewmaster bit, probably she and i the only ones realized i was calling on jacques
roumain with that one, haitian writer who wrote masters of the dew and one of edwidges literary ancestors
that little crack on mfa writing exercises that was me nudging my students not to just write exercises but to write
from the heart, i always look at these presentations as a chance to speak literary truth to my students
they probably my primary audience when i do those things, its always a meditation on
the literary life as i see it, an attempt on my part to provide a little guidance
ive decided im going to give the next 2 weeks to getting thru these manuscripts, these unfulfilled
obligations have begun to wear on my soul - finished mlk rewrite, sent it off, now these manuscripts
im going to forcemarch thru them like bolivian cadre, i literary (that was spose to be literally) have about 6 novels and as
many shorts that have been piling up for a year now, ima have to just put my novel down, god help me, and get thru these
2 weeks, thats all ima give it, what i dont get thru in 2 weeks dont get got (i say ima put that novel down but i cant imagine
actually doing so, ima try, or keep the hourly count down to 3 a day and give the rest to ofm - other folks manuscripts - ima try)
so this the piece i did for edwidge, you dear regulators will recognize a couple of my classic riffs in here
during my research on edwidge to make this happen it reminded me how much i love what she do
she is in truth a fellow traveler,
back when we were young writers i hit on her at a party once, i dont think she even noticed, but we
did become friends of a sort behind it, hey edwidge how you doing whenever i see her around
this experience though may have made literary running buddies of us
when she did comeforth and was about to do her reading she waved around her head
and said i feel a little warm up here, all those spirits arthur called hanging around -
thats what im talking about - me and edwidge on the same wavelength when it come to spiritwork
im out, got to prep for my workshop, its been a grind of a week & i will be glad when its done
though my plan to do catchup this weekend means i dont get no rest this weekend, no rest for the weary
rest is when i am able to get my own work done, thats what renew me - thats all i ask
all my love
rdoc
------------------------------
PRAISESONG FOR EDWIDGE
Lord Legba open this gate, it is I Rickydoc rootdoctor ask that this gate be open and this work be done.
I have come to sing a praisesong for edwidge, kric, yes im gon praise her, rickydoc gon praise her name – krak im gon praise your name
We have gathered here this evening to honor a master storyteller, a master griot. Edwidge wrote her 1st story while still a youngster in Haiti, of a little girl visited by a clan of women each night, she say her stories were given to her back in Haiti, and when she came to America she just brought them with her.
Haiti has always had a rich storytelling tradition, kricing and kracing, haiti storytellers considered national resources, storytelling aint no joke in Haiti. It is a master storyteller that has come to us this evening and we are honored by her presence, by the power of the word in this cathedral of the word.
From her early work, breath eyes memory she has been an acknowledged literary voice, a reputation that grows work after work with an ever widening emotional range and representing with a literary sophistication I can only envy, ffrom breath eyes memory through krik krak and the farming of bones, from beyond the mountains and the dew breaker to brother im dying she has given us a body of work that challenges the way we think about literature, about stories, about Haiti and women, about the human condition.
She has gathered a string of awards along the way, including the recent Macarthur, you go girl, but the one I like most from Jane Magazine, Gutsiest Woman of the Year.
It is a master griot that walks among us this evening, she say ``I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place where you carry your past like the hair on your head,''
Let me run a couple of quotes from Epilogue: Women Like Us, by you. “You remember thinking while braiding your hair that you look a lot like your mother. You remember her silence when you laid your first notebook in front of her. Her disappointment when you told her that words would be your life's work, like the kitchen had always been hers. She was angry at you for not understanding. "And with what do you repay me? With scribbles on paper that are not worth the scratch of a pig's snout." The sacrifices had been too great.
Writers don't leave any mark in the world. Not the world were we are from. In our world, writers are tortured and killed if they are men. Called lying whores, then raped and killed, if they are women. In our world, if you write, you are a politician, and we know what happens to politicians. They end up in a prison dungeon with their bodies covered in scalding tar before they're forced to eat their own waste.”
Thats the sense of urgency Edwidge Danticat bring to the page, that commitment to the word, writing not an mfa exercise for edwidge, writing serious business, writing lifework, a mission from god, Edwidge write from the heart, Edwidge write work that matters, work that counts, because literature does, literature mean something.
“You remember thinking while braiding your hair that you look a lot like your mother and her mother before her. It was their whispers that pushed you, their murmurs over pots sizzling in your head. a thousand women urging you to speak through the blunt tip of your pencil. Kitchen poets, you call them. Ghosts like burnished branches of a flame tree. These women, they asked for your voice so that they could tell your mother in your place that yes, women like you do speak, even if they speak in tongues that are hard to understand.”
You see what Im saying. Edwidge be doing that voodoo thing, literature as conjuration, the artist as shaman, every book a spell, every draft a divination, opening minds to new possibilities, what Julie Dash call "rupturing their reality." Edwidge a mythmaker. Working at the crossroads. Her work is a sacred text. Rich in the mythologic, the sacred and the luminous, conjurational literature and at its best visionary, Edwidge be representing.
I am put to mind of her testimony before Congress when her Uncle died after being put in a concentration camp down in Miami. She told them “I write today not in my own name, but in the name—and stead—of a loved one who died while in the custody of Department of Homeland Security and the Krome Detention Center in Miami. His name was Joseph Nosius Dantica, and he was eighty-one years old.”
Edwidges work give voice to the voiceless, she has spoken not only for her uncle but all of Haiti in all its troubled glory, her work speaks for us all, for all humanity, with a vision that unflinchingly faces the human condition and finds in the struggle of it redemption. She is a witness.
I humbly ask that you COMEFORTH edwidge and bring the power, the we shall over COMEFORTH, and bring the blessing COMEFORTH and feed the soul, COMEFORTH spellwoman COMEFORTH magicwoman, COMEFORTH voodoowoman COMEFORTH erzuliwoman COMEFORTH yemaya, COMEFORTH zoraneale COMEFORTH dewmaster COMEFORTH harriettubman COMEFORTH bring your snake COMEFORTH, bring your rattle COMEFORTH bring the spirit COMEFORTH shake the devil COMEFORTH soulfeeder COMEFORTH spiritbreeder COMEFORTH strengthmaker COMEFORTH troublebreaker COMEFORTH pathfinder COMEFORTH make a way COMEFORTH show the way COMEFORTH blueswoman COMEFORTH edwidge gon serve you this evening, she gon sanctify this ground
we have gathered here this evening in the name of the word, the almighty word, in the name of art that nurtures the soul, art that provides a vision - for without vision the people will perish
im gon praise im gon praise im gon sing yo praisesong - with edwidge I suspect the best is yet to come, got nothing but love for you, my fellow traveler and keeper of the faith, may your work endure, may your song serve many generations - this ground has been prepared edwidge, come forth and do your thing
this spell is done
Comments