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If Ishmael Reed, Al Young and other geniuses, like Charles Johnson, avoided politics in their books, you would still be radically changed by them. Their fictions present us with "realities" that the authors have a talent to accurately convey, and so we're given a true glimpse of humanity. Not to play Oprah, but isn't this why most of us read? We want to know all the other realities, and anything -- be it linguistic, moral, orthodox, or prurient -- that gives us a clue about why we bother to wake up.
Waiting for Sweet Betty will make the dying choose life for yet another day; it's a poetry book about making the best of your time. It is a book about race only in that the poet is black, and it is a book inspired by all the paintings that never came to be. Major is also a considerable artist, but that is an outlet that cannot express everything he sees. Poetry is a way to make words from what he otherwise couldn't capture, and give shape to another interpretation of the world around him. As he puts forth in "In My Own Language", this skill was not innate, nor did it leap upon him like a tiger after two pills and a drink:
I move things around to make rock and tree,
water and land, connect
in their own language, but
only as I learn to speak it ("In My Own Language", 86)
When a writer talks about writing, as postmodernists are wont to do, you can either discard it as self-obsession or see it as words grasping for the truths behind what the writer is passionate about. Documenting the world he's trying to comprehend, Major's poems take root in nature, then build beyond that. Take "Shoreline at Cambria", which starts off like Walt Whitman standing numb before a beautiful landscape:
Early morning shoreline: a scattering of birds blacken the sky.
They cover rocks and fill trees. Seabirds. Shorebirds. Yellow legs
Stilts. Ruddies. Spotteds ("Shoreline at Cambria", 18)
Those lines alone show some command of language, but most of us will read it and then want to get a book about birds. You think, "If only I knew all the names of birds, I could fly them in sentences and make music." You'd be right, of course: much good writing comes from simply knowing words. It comes from identification of what you see around you, even when -- nay, especially when -- what you see is not a vision or view commonly shared by your peers. In the world of black poets, Major is unique in that he's outdoors all the time. His poems aren't fueled by a historical slap or a "genocidal capitalist system", but by saltwater, mushroom-picking and silly ditties about food vendors ("Here we go to the hummus man...so early in the morning"). Whereas an Ernest Gaines can champion the country folk with grace and splendor, Major gives them an intellect far exceeding homespun wisdom. Whereas he uses the smarts in other poems to spin jokes out of the nothingness of Sartre, "Cambria" zeroes in on the smartest thing an artist can realize -- his limitations:
And I'm out on the deck trying to capture this but it's
not possible ("Shoreline at Cambria", 18)
It's good for an artist to experiment, and take a stab at anything, but finished products are all meant to be good. Major is a fantastic painter, and I'd be surprised if he couldn't actually draw the images these poems provide. His work in poetry simply shows us a way in which he was able to most completely fulfill a vision, or idea. Chad Crouch seems to do the same with his art and his songs, and Phil Elvrum with his music and photography. Peers like Reed and Young may have already broken down the stereotypes against which Clarence Major strains, but Major shows one important thing in Waiting for Sweet Betty: if you're waiting forever for the image to come, choose another medium!
Major's poems are not like Rita Dove's -- anybody could read these and comprehend individual lines -- but more along the lines of Henry Young or Mark Strand. They tackle big ideas with lightness, honesty and grace, and show the symmetry between a flower and a budding thought. Whenever music is fused to the mix, it seems to have much more behind it than the more famous, more lauded work of a Langston Hughes or a Kerouac. Major bebops words together ("late with shade, low, low, long") to speed up, change the pace, or alter the dance of the poetry -- never as a prop to simply signify or lift up jazz heritage or jazz culture. He's also one of the first poets I've read who can talk about a literal jazz performance and keep it both real and, within the frame of the poem, transcendent:
People are happiest when they forget.
Everyone forgot you that time in Kansas City
When Half Pint pitched high
and sang way up in a voice not his own ("Unknown Presence", 84)
Poetry is a hard sell; it's got a bad rap for being a dainty diversion. Black poets are a harder sell, as the most popular ones (Maya Angelou, Alice Walker) aren't necessarily the most talented, and their exposure has made them trite before their time. Those who've been taught (the Black Power poets, especially) are more about politics than language. Major gives us a major statement here by providing a book of poems, largely about himself, that are willfully smart, impeccably drawn exercises, drawn together whenever a painting would not work to tell his story. It's a good one.
-- Theodore Defosse
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About the Publisher:
Copper Canyon Press was founded in 1972 in the belief that good poetry is essential to the individual spirit and a necessary element in a thriving culture. The Press publishes poetry exclusively and has established an international reputation for its commitment to its authors, editorial acumen, and dedication to expanding the audience of poetry.
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