Matt Ashby writes: The room filled with about 60 people, some standing in the back, for the interview of Amiri Baraka by Colin Channer. Baraka, known for his poetry and activism, recently released a short story collection Tales of the Out and the Gone, published by Akashic Books, a Brooklyn-based independent house that also published a collection of Jamaican writers, Iron Balloons, as edited by Channer. Akashic’s publisher Johnny Temple introduced them.

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Johnny Temple

At first, I thought I would take notes on the interview, but the discussion was too engrossing to be distracted by recording it. Channer began by asking “So, you still making trouble,� to which Baraka replied, “Not Enough.� Although some of his vitriolic fierceness was curbed for the small press book fair, Baraka spoke no less urgently. He gave his personal opinion of Newark’s new mayor and his policies. He repeated this idea that “Black faces in high places� isn’t necessarily the answer as epitomized by the situation in Newark. He said, some of them, “never wanted to change [the structure]. They just wanted to assume the power.�

On writing he said, “Language is our most noble creation.� The artist should aim to inspire, to illicit a reaction. As an aside to this, he said, “I got this from Mao. Don’t think this is original.� He explained that even he, a renowned writer, after all these years of publishing, has tons of unpublished material, even he has to fight to find people to publish him. Then he said, “That’s the only writer’s block there is, not publishing.�

Of his formative years he said by age 10, he was reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. A family member had a subscription to a book club and this gave him access to volumes of Dickens and others. He told an anecdote of visiting a relative in the segragated south. He was in a corner store and he began reading one of the signs, the shop-owner grimaced and voiced some disapproval. His mother snatched him out of there by the elbow, but the young Baraka was perplexed. He said, “You mean he’s threatened I could read. Lord help us.� He began writing letters to FDR, which he would then stuff into the radio, thinking that he could reach him quicker this way. He wrote his own newspaper in seventh grade and handwrote 10 copies. Later of course, he was kicked out of college and kicked out of the Air Force.

Colin Channer

At several points, Channer asked Baraka to read from his stories so he could ask a question. In one, he read a portion of a story which detailed an overweight woman in some distress and Channer asked if Baraka had some problem with overweight women, to which Baraka responded, “if she isn’t your wife.� Other notables (because I noted them) were when Channer said, “People don’t think of you as someone who likes to have fun, but you like to have fun.� Baraka said, “That’s because they think my cries of outrage aren’t based on me wanting to have more fun.�

He mentioned Henry Dumas, a very significant author that has been greatly overlooked. Dumas, he said, was Toni Morrison’s main influence. When Channer asked, “What don’t we know?� (about you), Baraka responded, “Some of it would put me in jail.�

As a final question, Channer asked about what he would say to Michael Richards for using the word “nigger,â€? while acknowledging that Baraka himself uses it in his works. Baraka responded, “I’d tell him not to say that. We used it as a vaccination against white people using it.â€? And in his wisest remark of the day Baraka said, “He was just a feverish child who spewed his gut out. But what I want to know is, are they going to take away his poet laureateship?â€? and then he smirked. The comment, of course, refers to the controversial, anti-Semitic charge against Baraka, for which the state of New Jesery revoked his poet laureateship title before his term was finished. Baraka seemed to be suggesting here that things he’d said in the past might have come from a similarly unchecked place, “feverishâ€? and “childish.” But now that I think of it, he might have been saying that despite Richards’ hateful words, in the long run, the comedian would be forgiven, whereas, Baraka himself was continually defamed. Either way, it was an interesting ending to a charged discussion.

Baraka and Channer
Small Press Fair
Dec 3, 2006