MONDAY
done deal
magicalrrealism, newren workshop, radical activism
it was a busy weekend
just did radical activism presentation
nice crowd special moment - reminds me of a reading i once did
for FDCC at the ethical culture center in manhattan
they have this quote over the podium that really moved me
where the people meet to seek the highest that place is holyground
probably part of my holyground thing in rest for the weary
and thats what ive felt with these three engagements
african voices magical realism, newren workshop and
the su radical activist presentations
i enjoyed them all
i bitch and moan about these things taking up my time
but then its so revitalizing to be engaged
with folk on issues that are dear to me
should have known african voices would be a family affair
saw old friends/colleagues and met some new ones
kudos to carolyn butts and crew for building a literary institution
also found out the title to bill fordes book
'death of an american capitalist'
had googled bill and didnt get but that one hit
and thats a travesty
bill was one of my mentors, we fell out behind harlem writers guild business
but still he was one of my 3 primary mentors,- john killens, fred hudson, bill forde
no way ima let bill forde fall by the historical wayside
he gave too much to the struggle for me to allow that
this the magical realism presentation i did for african voices
didnt get a chance to give it because it turned out to be a dialogue thing
nice to be able to park it here on rootsblog
got to do that mag thing with rootwork.com
some place where i can park other folks visions
a online meeting ground
where folk meet to seek the highest
im outta here
hangtough yall
rdoc
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magic and magical realism in afroam literature
i am flowers of the delta clan flowers and the line of o killens
it pleased me to be asked to participate on this panel
by african voices, a literary institution i greatly admire
and to speak on speculative literature
which means a lot to me on a lot of levels
my own work is a peculiar magical realism
and my current novel, rest for the weary, even more so,
but my love for the speculative that goes beyond that
i also love scifi and fantasy - lit is what i do, scifi is what i read for fun
ive gotten some of my best literary licks from speculative work
my fascination with prophets and magicians, mythwork, holygrounds and the destiny
of all humanity come straight from scifi
what i like about speculative is that it breaks me free of reality
it is a manifestation of the magical function of literarature
speculative work gives you the freedom to dream
culturally it performs the same function
according to theophus smith in conjuring culture
african americans are a magical people for whom magical
interpretations of reality are still viable
that ability to build alternative realities
to envision new realities in which we are empowered
is a survival skill
speculative works allow african american culture to be magical
they allow african american culture to envision alternative realities
other than the one in which we are the despised of the earth
to envision alternative futures for the destiny of all humanity
to function as guide and guardian – you who walked first on two feet
the definition of speculative work is work that plays with reality, work that conjures
which is to an extent what all literature does
i consider myself a mythmaker
i make myth and myth makes tomorrow
as i define so shall it be
and the vehicles of my myths are my works
the more speculative the better
envisioning new realities, alternative realities
is what magical realism does
the act of magic is forcing reality to bend to your will
making real that which was not
magic plays with reality in the same way fiction does
you create the vision then you invest your power in it until its real in the world
samesame visionaries
magic empowers
magical realism allows me to break free of what is
and contemplate what could be
what gayle jones in the healing calls a spirit of imaginative wonder
the diff between magical realism and scif/fantasy
is that magical realism has to have the option of being real
the magical approach to life is when you can look at it one way and its scientific reality
look at it another way and it just might be magic
as toni does in beloved when beloved could easily be the returned ghost toni plays her to be
or for those who prefer rational explanation she could just as easily be the woman held captive in the cellar
i write magical realism
because i like the freedom and i like magic
and i like the enduring connection to reality
the maybe so possibility
i call what i do literary hoodoo
manifesting hoodoo through my work
my generation of writers was greatly influenced
by ishmael reed, mumbo jumbo changed so many
of us from good christians to literary magicians
using nommo: the power of the word as magic
the power to change reality
in particular through literature
one of the primary ideological powers
folk think of marquez and the latins when they think of magical realism
but youve got so many brands of magical realism
different types manifest in different literary cultures
the magical realism of rushdie is different from marguez or calvino
and different from that of toni morrison or john edgar wideman
the african american brand of magical realism is shaped by the griotic
and the hoodoo schools of african american literature
in the literary hoodoo school of afroam literature.
mystically inclined writers attempt to manifest hoodoo, the indigenous african american spiritual tradition, in their works and lives
it was chesnutt with the conjure womans tales first start systematically using hoodoo as literary ground,
zora neale that most facilitated hoodoo's evolution from a folk tradition to a literary one and
ishmael "just because you cant see d stones dont mean im not building" reed transformed hoodoo
from a magical system to a functioning 20th century afrospiritual ideology
literary hoodoo is literature as conjuration.
the artist as shaman - every book a spell, every draft a divination.
nommo: to state something so well that it makes it so
literary mythmakers, as i define so shall it be.
for instance, marcus garvey was highly influenced by ethiopia unbound by casely hayford, from which he took, among others, the phrase, one god! one aim! one destiny! in turn marcus garvey influenced thousands and thousands of blackfolk, thereby influencing the historical dynamics of his times and our destiny for the foreseeable future.
this happens to some degree everytime a reader (or even better another artist/intellectual) is touched by your work. literature opens minds and passes on ideas. literature allows folk to see themselves and their lives in a new perspective and opens audiences to new possibilities. what julie dash calls "rupturing their reality."
magical realism serves that african american hunger for alternative realities
mystically inclined black writers and intellectuals found affinity for hoodoo not only because it allows us to utilize a magical/metaphysical tradition buried deep in the black psyche and worldview but because it also allows us to perform the function of tribal shaman in a contemporary manifestation.
since humanities earliest days the sorceror shaman medicineworker witchdoctor prophet has been a tribal resource in times of trouble. the shaman functions as an agent of the community, whether trying to bring rain, confound the tribe's enemies (within & without), or guide the tribe's future
or as in gloria naylors wrote in her meditation on the working of hands in mama day: "the island got spit out from the mouth of god, and when it fell to the earth it brought along an army of stars. he tried to reach down and scoop them back up, and found himself shaking hands with the greatest conjure woman on earth. 'leave 'em here lord,' she said, 'i aint got nothing but these poor black hands to guide my people, but i can lead on with light.'"
gayl jones calls her redemption novel the healing. the rather prosaic 3 line blueswork of corrigedora become the mature bluesreps of the healing, dialogue as narration, a toldtale of incantatory ambiguity. "she really do some powerful healing, though. and she aint a root doctor neither. she don't need no root to heal. some people say that that is a superior form of healing when you don't need no root to heal. when you just healing people by knowing that they is healed."
the other contributing trope of african american magical realism is the griotic
there are those of us in afroam lit who feel that we are heirs to two literary traditions, the western written tradition and the african(/american) oral tradition and hope in the fusion to contribute to the evolution of both.
consciously griotic, africanamerican literature is passionately concerned with cultural custodianship.
as the voice of a culture that has since its inception felt itself under mortal siege, african american literature is fundamentally shamanistic and vitally concerned with communal health and empowerment
those of us who consider ourselves trained cultural custodians and masters of nommo, have consciously decided to contribute our lifeworks to the viability of that culture and to defend it against those who would destroy or cripple it. within or without.
its most revered figures have all been culturally engaged. creating the visions without which the people shall perish and serving in its mythic heart its ageold griotic function of keeping the culture alive and viable
one cares for the tribal soul by monitoring it through its cultural products, contributing what it needs to balance out its weaknesses and emphasize its strengths. minimizing the dysfunctional components and emphasizing the transformational. the battles over gangster rap and mercenary literature are battles for the control of cultural traits. of our destiny.
our fa
our understanding is that strong works contribute to a strong culture. that strong works are healing spells and committed writers are a manifestation of the african american survival instinct.
shield and spear.
august wilson recounts what he considers his moment of artistic revelation, when in the fall of 1965 he put on an old 78 rpm, nobody in town can bake a sweet jellyroll like mine by bessie smith and says it was a "resurrection and a redemption", says the "universe stuttered and everything fell into a new place," says it was "the beginning of my consciousness that i was representative of a culture and the carrier of some very valuable antecedents . . . i saw the blues as a cultural response of a nonliterate people whose history and culture were rooted in the oral tradition. the response was to a world that was not of their making, in which the idea of themselves as a people of imminent worth that belied their recent history was constantly assaulted. it was a world that did not recognize their gods, their manners, their mores. it despised their ethos and refused to even recognize humanity. in such an environment the blues was a flag bearer of definition . . . . a spiritual conduit that gave spontaneous expression to the spirit that was locked in combat and devising new strategies for engaging life and enlarging itself. it was a true and articulate literature that was in the forefront of the development of both character and consciousness. i turned my ear, my heart and whatever analytical tools i possessed to embrace this world. i elevated it, rightly or wrongly, to biblical status."
for this school of african american writers magical realism is a griotic code serving a people in danger of losing their souls and championing cultural imperatives pertinent to our survival under actively hostile conditions.
we call that working in the tradition, litericizing afroam folkloric tropes, including magic
these writers have chosen works based in the tradition as a more authentic expression of the african american literary sensibility and their own evolving artistic visions.
consciously attempting to forge a uniquely african american narrative language based on the oral tradition and its musical notes such as blues, jazz and hiphop. litericizing africanamerican folk language and enhancing its functionality as an instrument of emotional/cultural/literary expression and 21st century thought and development.
as much music and orally based as it is on conventional literary forms and searching for that little extra beat that defines black literature and black art as fundamentally as it defines black music.
beats like audience participation, improvisation, orality and functionality, the sacred and functional quality of art or the explorations of afroam culture manifested in the narrative structure of naylor or wideman
beats like magic
what toni refers to in rootedness after explaining how she uses the earth as an afrocentric chorus responding to the action in tar baby "those are ways in which i try to incorporate, into that traditional genre the novel, unorthodox novelistic characteristics-so that it is, in my view, black, because it uses the characteristics of black art. . . . i don't regard black literature as simply books written by black people, or simply as literature written about black people, or simply as literature that uses a certain mode of language in which you just sort of drop g's. there is something very special and very identifiable about it and it is my struggle to find that elusive but identifiable style in my books."
african american griotic practitioners are cultural custodians attempting to develop a heightened narrative language that serves as both literary and sacred language; as both text (personal and cultural expression) and text (cultural template).
an attempt to ensure the 21st century viability of african american culture. forging a narrative instrument worthy of 21st century nuance, an instrument of literary, political and spiritual redemption.
the primary trope of afroam lit is and always shall be struggle.
the ongoing struggle for survival and empowerment that blackfolk have waged since we came to this land and that has more than anything shaped us as a people.
consequently afroam literature is working literature. conjurational lit and at its best visionary. as such it continues to address the critical issues that concern us as artists and as a people.
mix in the commercialization and canonization of african american literature, bring to a boil and extract the sacred text: a cultural template that shapes a cultures evolution and provides a cultural vision. an evolutionary inclination shaped by significant works of art and thought.
in a 1973 new york times book review of sula, toni's first novel, the reviewer call herself warning toni not to be too colored, said if toni doesnt restrict herself to colored topics she might make something of herself one day. that she might then "transcend that early and unintentionally limiting classification 'black woman writer'."
well, i guess toni showed them. our culture at its best has been one of the most influential in the world. i consequently speculate the attempt to develop a uniquely african american literary text will be one of the definitive components of 21st century literature and thought. a sacred text and text of our ongoing struggle to survive and prosper as a people and a culture. our destiny. our fa.
or as ishmael reed wrote in conjure, "may the best church win, shake hands now and come out conjuring." or in the words of bluesman keb' mo'. "i been to the crossroads and aint no devil down there.”
magical realism is a manifestation of the visionary trope in african american li
tthis is a sacred calling this thing we do
writers are creators. kuumba. gods assistants on the planet. demoja. creation. shalabango. to make real that which was not. to conjure.
‘o life!’ said the druidic james joyce, ‘i go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.’
there are moments when you have placed yourself so precisely in the historical continuums center of balance that you are aware of being a godforce, a focal point of reality and illusion, a nexus of generational possibility, conjuring reality into being through the sheer force of your will your work and your game.
there are times when the magic come down on you
unleah yourself from what is and contemplate what could be
magical realism gives you the freedom to dream
new worlds, new paradigms, new realities
mythmakers all, as i define so shall it be
if you pull it off - you and your works will be studied and modeled in the hearts and aspirations of generations to come. to the extent that your works are relevant and significant to those generations, to that extent are you immortal.
that is all
this spell is done
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