Lunch with Amiri Baraka

There are some fabulously creative people here in Austin and occasionally, several of them get together and do wonderful, enlightening things. One such occasion was the special lunch that I attended this past Thursday at 11th Street Station. For the second weekend in a row, the Black Arts Movement festival had lined up a selection of Black artists, starting with political poet, Amiri Baraka.

As usual, the morning had gotten away from me. When my cell alerted me that I had 15 minutes to get to the restaurant, I raced around the apartment to get ready. I put my game face on as I walked to the back room  of the restaurant, but to my relief, Baraka had not arrived. Fortunately, I had a chance to reconnect with another writer and meet a large round table of others.

When our guest of honor finally arrived, most of us local writers, who were mostly poets, had arrived. After taking a brief opinion poll that chicken and waffles were the way to go, Baraka first asked how many of us were published. Then he asked how many of us were self-published. I’ve heard so many mixed messages, concerning self publication, but I was initially surprised by Baraka’s reasoning: institutions never published writers whose work deals with bringing down those very institutions; therefore, it was up to us to make sure that our work is published. He told us about how he had self published his own two-page newspaper back when he was in middle school, writing every copy by hand.

Baraka then wanted to go around the table and hear which poets had influenced us. Fortunately for me, the outspoken writer to my left, suggested that discussion begin with the poets on the other side of the table, which meant that I would blessedly go last. I estimated that I would have at least 30 minutes to think of an intelligent answer.  I felt like one of my students who had not done the reading all along and now the teacher had given us a pop quiz.

Name the poet who has had an influence on my writing?! Now, I occasionally read poetry, but the greatest influence on my writing has been traveling and living in other countries. I write to document significant moments in my life. I write fiction so that the main characters talk and think through the everyday drama of their experiences.

As the enlightening conversation unfolded, my anxiety of being an unprepared student subsided. I sat there, drinking in the other artist’s experiences, which were all the more interesting since we all had the additional connection of being “community caregivers”: teachers, teen counselors, financial counselors for low-income adults, event organizers, anthropology graduate students. 

Baraka led us down another conversational path when he stated that presently, there was a whitewashing of the political history of  the 60s. We all agreed that in general, the quality of education had lowered. One guy, who was orginially from Chicago, testified about the dumbing down of education. As soon as he came to Texas in 1988, he hit a huge barrier of not fitting in. Not unusual for the new kid, but he vividly recalled being teased for using big words, reading a lot and so on.

After he shared his story, I was nearly bursing out of my skin to share my background. I explained that I began writing so I could remember every detail of my Peace Corps service in Tanzania as a Biology and math teacher. I then summarized my international teaching experience and concluded with the fact that I’d taught my students outside the States at a much higher level than what is expected here in Texas despite the zealous emphasis on standardized testing.

Before the lunch had ended, I exchanged information with most of the local artists in order to send them information about the Austin Writers Roulette. The few artists whose information I had not received, I caught up with later that night at Baraka’s performance. Two of the local artists opened for Baraka and I was blown away at how I had never heard of such great talents until that day. I hope they will make time in their busy professional and performance schedules to participate in the roulette.

Once Baraka came to the stage, three local jazz musicians accompanied him–a pianist, an upright bassist and a drummer. Their music provided an aural backdrop that rose, dipped and punctuated the selections Baraka read. He started off with about 20 “low-kus,” which was his variation of haikus. The short pithy poems did not follow any numerical format. My favorite one dealt with the fact that rich people ate more than poor people; so rich people are full of more sh*t. He ended his hourlong performance with an epic poem about 9/11, which occurred when he was poet laureate.  

As beautifully packaged as Baraka’s political, poetic messages were, I also experienced nearly the extreme opposite when I attended Paul Mooney’s performance on Saturday. My friend had wanted to sit closer to the stage, but I did not want to tempt a comedic berating from a man infamous for his raw humor. Although Mooney dabbled with some polticial jokes, such as the ridiculousness of Trump questioning Obama’s citizenship (“Trump forgets that he and Obama both came from a white vagina!”), my personal favorite was, “My grandmother told her granddaughters ‘Don’t you come back home broke ’cause a dry purse and a wet p*ssy don’t go together.'”

Although Mooney never once mentioned Tupac, the bandana around his bald head caused me to recall the political messages of the slain rapper. I don’t believe that association was coincidence.

This weekend was a fantastic reminder that despite the grimness of politics, be it work, local, state, national or global, I can always write about it and share my observations through artistic expressions.