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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Poetry Off the Shelf: Amiri Baraka is Back in the Building

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Curtis Fox: This is Poetry Off the Shelf from the Poetry Foundation, February 25, 2015. I'm Curtis Fox. This week, “Amiri Baraka is Back in the Building.” Amiri Baraka died a little over a year ago. In this month's issue of Poetry magazine, however, there's a new Baraka poem. It's from a recently published collection of his work called S O S: Poems 1961 - 2013. Amiri Baraka published a handful of poems in Poetry magazine back in the early 1960s when he went by the name LeRoi Jones. In those days, he was associated with the Beats and with the New York City avant-garde of poets like Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. In 1965, after Malcolm X was assassinated, he dropped out of that world and spearheaded the Black Arts Movement. Here to talk a bit about Amiri Baraka and listen to a few of his poems, I'm joined by Randall Horton, a poet and professor of English at the University of New Haven. Randall, Amiri Baraka had a huge presence for many years in American poetry. When did you first start reading him, and what effect did he have on you?

Randall Horton: It's kind of interesting. I actually didn't start reading Amiri Baraka until later on in life. I was actually incarcerated, and I didn't come to writing until a little bit later on. And, so, Amiri Baraka was sort of introduced to me by the poet E Ethelbert Miller.

Curtis Fox: In DC.

Randall Horton: In DC. Ethelbert was one of my mentors. And then I got a chance to meet Amiri Baraka, and we actually went out to dinner at Charlie's. And I was, you know, I remember I wrote a poem, actually, about that. And so it was actually really interesting to get a chance to talk to someone whose work that you admired, someone that you knew had put everything on the line, his professional career, for the sake of language, or for the sake of culture, for the sake of art. He didn't mind being the one out there taking the criticism because he's tried to speak the truth. And so I respected that.

Curtis Fox: And he's had a lot of criticism go his way over the years. We can get into that a little bit later. So, we're gonna listen to a poem called “Dope.” Jimmy Carter is president. The crack epidemic is still in the future at this point.

Randall Horton: It's about a couple of years away.

Curtis Fox: And so is the slam poetry movement. Although nobody told Baraka it was still to come. Here's how he introduced it in 1978 to an audience in Buffalo. The recording can be found on PennSound's audio archive.

(RECORDING PLAYS)

Amiri Baraka: You know, you know, that's heroin, how that's used as a form of social control. Narcotics. You know, these, like, these cult things used as another form of social control, you know? And so this, I'm talking about another kind of drug, this is called “Dope.”

(RECORDING STOPS)

Curtis Fox: This is a long poem. He's a terrific performer. And I was looking for a place to cut it. So, I didn't. But there's no way to cut this poem.

Randall Horton: You have to get all the oohs in.

Curtis Fox: Yeah, so listeners should sit back and it's gonna go on for a while, but it's quite good. He's quite a great performer.

Randall Horton: OK.

Curtis Fox: So here's “Dope” by Amiri Baraka, read here in Buffalo in 1978.

(RECORDING PLAYS)

Amiri Baraka: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh, ooh, ooh. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, Ow! Ow, Ow, ow! Ooh, ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh, ooh, ooh. Ray light. Morning. Fire. Lunch yet. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Yes, the pain in dreams comes again. Race, pain. People, our people, our people everywhere. Yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah. Our people, yes, people. Every people, most people. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Most people in pain. Yester pain and pain today. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It must be the devil. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It must be the devil. It must be the devil. It must be the devil. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. Devil, yeah, devil. Oh, wow. Must be the devil. Must be the devil mus is, mus is, mus is, must be the devil. It can't be Rockefeller. It can't be him. No, Lord. It can't be DuPont. No, Lawd, it can't be. No Lawd. No way, No way, No suh. No way, Jose. Can't be them rich folks. They is good to us. They is good to us.

They is good to us. They is good to us. They is good to us. I know the master taught me so. I've seen it on Channel 7, I've seen it on Channel 9, I've seen it on Channel 4 and 2 and 5. Rich folks. Good to us. Poor folks ain't shit. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It must be the devil. Going to heaven after I die. After we die, everything gon' be different. After we die, we ain't gon' be hungry, ain't gon' be pain, ain't gon' be suffering, won't go through this again after we die. After we die, oh, wow. Oh, wow. Wow. After we die, it's all gon' be good. Have all the money we need after we die. Have all the food we need after we die. Have a nice house like the rich folks. After we die. After we die. After we die. We can live like Reverend Ike After we die. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Must be the devil. It ain't capitalism. It ain't capitalism. It ain't capitalism. No, it ain't that. Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie. Life's unfair. But it ain't capitalism. Must be the devil. Oh, wow. It ain't the police. Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie. You know Rosalynn wouldn't know Lillian. (LAUGHTER) He's drunk and racist. Brother ain't no reflection on Jimmy. Must be the devil got in him. Must be the devil got in him I tell you. The devil killed Malcolm and Dr. King too. Even killed both Kennedys and Pablo Neruda and overthrew Allende's government, killed Lumumba, and is negotiating over there in Rhodesia with Stepin Fetchit Sleep 'n Eat, and Birmingham going under the name of Ian Smith. It must be the devil. It can be Vorster. It can't be apartheid. It can't be imperialism. Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie. Didn't you hear him say in his State of the Union message, "I swear on (UNKNOWN) catatonia, I wouldn't lie." Nixon lied. Halderman lied. Dean lied. Hoover lied. Hoover sucked Hoover. Jimmy, don't. Jimmy wouldn't. Jimmy ain't lying. It must be the devil. Put your money on the plate. Must be the devil. In heaven, we'll all be straight. It can't be Rockefeller. He gave Amos (UNKNOWN) a scholarship to Behavior Modification University. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) And Genevieve—almost white, works for his foundation. It must be niggers. It can't be Mellon. He gave Winky Suckass a fellowship in his bank. Put him in charge of closing out mortgages in the low-life Pittsburgh Hill nigger section. It can't be him. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Put your money in the plate. Don't be late. Don't have to wait. You gon' be in heaven after you die. You gon get all you need once you're gone. Yes, sir. I heard it on The Jeffersons. I heard it on the rookies. I swallowed it whole on roots. Wasn't it nice? Wasn't it nice? Slavery was so cool and all you had to do was wear derbies and vests and train chickens and buy your way free if you had a mind to. (APPLAUSE) Must be the devil. It wasn't the white folks. Them lazy niggers chained itself and threw their own black asses into the bottom of the boats. Well, now that you mention it, there was a king-ass Black USA helped throw your ass in the bottom of the boat. Your mama, your wife. And you never see them no more. Must have been the devil. Give me your money. Put your money in the plate. Having to be here soon. Just got to die. Just got to stop living. Close your eyes, stop breathing, and bam, oh, heaven be here. You have all of what you need. Bam. All of a sudden, heaven be here. You have all of what you need. That assembly line you work on will dissolve in thin air. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Just got to die. Just get it. Die. This old world ain't nothing. Must be the devil got you thinking so. It can't be Rockefeller, it can't be Morgan. It can't be capitalism. It can't be national oppression. Oh, wow. No way. Now go back to work and cool it. Go back to work and lay back just a little while longer till you pass. It's going to be all right once you gone. Give me that last bit of silver you got stashed there, Sister. Give me that desk now, brotherman, it'll be OK. On the other side. Your soul be clean, be washed. Pure white. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, wow. Now go back to work. Go to sleep. Yes, go to sleep. Go back to work. Yes. Oh, wow. Wow. Ow! Ow! Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, ow, Ow! Yes! Oh, yes! Ow, Ow, ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, ow! Amen. (APPLAUSE)

(RECORDING ENDS)

Curtis Fox: Quite a performance, right? That's one of those problems you look at on the page, you wouldn't know what to make of it, but to hear it performed…

Randall Horton: If you listen to it live, right? The first thing that for the pop sound is the whole idea, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Right? And so that's sort of like the euphoric feeling that dope gives you, right? He sort of playing with that in a lot of ways that all of these things that you sort of accept as sort of like a dope that's sort of used to medicate you and block you from really seeing what's truly happening.

Curtis Fox: But when we read the poem, everything is the opposite of what he actually says. So, he says it ain't capitalism, he's really thinking, it's capitalism.

Randall Horton: Oh, yeah, yeah. No. (LAUGHTER) So, and I think that's part of the irony and the humorous part of it as well, because both you and I are sitting here cracking up. And, so, he's always working against tensions. He's always working against something, you know, bouncing up against something, giving us something and then exposing it for what it is. Sort of pulling the covers off, as sort of Carolyn Rogers would say.

Curtis Fox: You know, it occurs to me that if he had gone and written a poem that says “it is capitalism,” nobody would listen to it because nobody wants to hear that. But if you do it with the humor and the irony...

Randall Horton: Because this is what we believe to be holy, you know. Of course. And to end it with Amen, sort of blesses the whole act in a lot of ways.

Curtis Fox: Right. And the cadence of it is a preacher gone off the rails.

Randall Horton: Well, yeah. He's actually, you know, operating sort of within the African American vernacular tradition when you start talking about, you know, the whole idea of sermons. And so, you know, you had that thing from field hollers to work songs to blues sermons. And so all of that is sort of incorporating. And, so, he's actually on the stump. And he's incorporating a tradition as he's sort of giving you an aesthetic. So yeah.

Curtis Fox: But he incorporated tradition, but it's done with deep irony. I've never heard irony so energetically.

Randall Horton: That's part of the tradition. The whole idea of this sort of misdirection, the, the sort of play, that's what African American vernacular sort of based on. You look at some of the earlier things. He's operating in the tradition of shining some of the stack of lead.

Curtis Fox: So, he comes out of a tradition, an oral tradition. He's responded to that. But it's also, doesn't this put slam poetry to shame? Doesn't it, like, preview at all and, like, do it all right there in that poem.

Randall Horton: Well, I mean, exactly. You have the whole…you have the whole performance. But, you know, Baraka has been leading up to this moment for a while. And you look at some of his early performances, he definitely incorporates those sorts of sounds and sorts of things. But, yeah, I mean, he's sort of operating at the intersection of poetry, performance, intellectual ideas. He's bringing the whole thing in a way that slam probably was intended to do but may never do just, you know, just because of the nature of the way slam rolls. But some people would say he's probably one of the original slam poets. So, you have to give Baraka that. And that's sort of what sets him as a forerunner to our talking about performance.

Curtis Fox: Yeah, he was certainly a great performer. There's so much in him, in his poetry, that is oppositional. It's polemical. And sometimes he seemed to go a little bit over the line to provoke for the sake of provocation.

Randall Horton: Well, I mean, if you look at the poem, “S O S,” I guess it's something he's sort of lost this sort of patience with asking in a sort of a nice way. Everything after that period sort of becomes not an ask but I'm telling you. He's not asking anymore, he's not polite anymore, he's not trying to skirt behind the idea of an aesthetic or what aesthetic is supposed to be. You know, there's always this argument, you know, within…Gwendolyn Brooks ran across the same thing. When you switch poetics and you become a little bit more militant, you get opposition, and you people are saying, "Oh, well, are you really working at, are you really working in the poetic form?"

Curtis Fox: Well, that's always the question when a poet turns very political. Exactly. Is that have they have been in poetry or….? That's right. Inevitably was going to happen. That dogged Baraka throughout the latter part of his career, of course. Let me ask you this: How he said he seems to have had a large effect on a lot of younger poets today, does he still have that effect? Is he still like a central figure and you anticipate that he will continue to be?

Randall Horton: I think he is. I have to be careful when I talk about the younger generation 'cause I like to think I'm part of that still. (LAUGHTER) And what I think, you know, we have a lot of factors, you know, within poetry that stops Baraka from entering, you know, a lot of young people's mind, especially when you start talking about the idea of how you're going to deal with race within the poem. And what does that mean when you're sort of in the war camp trying to get a book published, trying to get a poem published? Editors looking at you, and somebody may not feel comfortable with that. And so there's always that reality. What I would always tell younger poets and younger writers when they're sort of, you know, thinking about how to best sort of get into Baraka, you have to if you dig into his early work, especially the critical essays, the plays, a lot of that stuff comes up later in his poems and later in what he's trying to sort of work out. So you have to look at the whole scope of Baraka. If you come into a poem and you hear something that's sort of negative and you say, "I don't wanna hear that."

Curtis Fox: Yeah, that's the problem, is that you can pull out a lot of small little things from his poetry and say, I'm offended.

Randall Horton: Right. And it's offensive. It's no, no shortage of that. But if you put it in this total context, which I try to do when I teach Baraka, I have to put him in historical context, and I have to, you know, let my students understand those things. And then, you know, then when they come to the uncomfortable parts, they're better able to handle them.

Curtis Fox: Randall, thanks so much.

Randall Horton: No, it's been my pleasure. My pleasure.

Curtis Fox: Randall Horton is the author of Hook, a memoir that's coming out this spring. Amiri Baraka's poem “Dope” is reprinted in the LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, published by Basic Books. We got permission to use the recording of the poem from the Chris Calhoun Agency and PennSound. Let us know what you think of this program. Email us at [email protected]. The theme music for this program comes from the Claudia Quintet. For Poetry Off the Shelf, I'm Curtis Fox. Thanks for listening.