I’m coming up for air. Please forgive my absence from this sacred space.
My first semester of studying Nonfiction at Pacific University was rewarding and challenging. I don’t want an entire semester to go by before you hear from me again. In the Spring I shared with y’all my visions and goals for my MFA study. Sharing it again if you’d like to check it out. Or hold me to anything I wrote, lol!
As part of my study, I wrote a few pieces that found their way to publication and a couple others that I’ve submitted this Fall.
Detroit’s Riverwise, now a North Star for justice communications published “The Ongoing Presence of Charity Hicks” in its Fall 2023 issue.
Geez Magazine published “slow, slow, slow.” Unfortunately it’s only available in the print edition of Fall 2023. We did do an IG live together where we discussed this piece specifically and the intersection between movement work and ancestor reverence.
I worked closely with Mike Magnuson, author of two novels and three books of nonfiction. We talked about writing for magazines, writing fees, and circulation. We laughed a lot. He recommended I read Subcommandante Marcos, which was a dope addition to my plans. He challenged me to marry lyricism with political consciousness.
The Fall 2023 semester ended with lots of writing with and about Ancestors. Writing essays has become a prayer, a priesthood, a communion at the best of times. This semester I investigated passionately what it means to be a “Detroit writer,” wielding my craft of creative nonfiction.
Here’s a list of the books that I read this Fall. I’ll highlight a few of them whose impact still echoes on my page and in my vision of myself as a writer. The highlights aren’t summaries but notes from my study reflection of how the craft of the book has/is impacting me.
My Fall 2023 Book List:
Abani, Chris. Smoking the Bible. Copper Canyon Press, 2022.
This small book (85 pages) begins with a joke, then a caveat, then “a slow violence.”
This book has elements of collage, which is resonant to me, and it’s rooted in his personal experiences. Even the cultural elements are anchored by personal experience or personal stories or introduced by Abani in acts of remembering or reminiscing. On the surface there appears to be tension between his describing this story as “commonplace “ and his connecting his personal story to a range of indigenous and ancestral stories as practices. These include: Afikpo proverbs about the face, Yoruba concepts of beauty, how Afikpo boys are born and how they are formed into men, Ibgbo elder markings, mythologies of ancient Ego people, and more.
His narrative techniques allow him to venture away, into what may be unfamiliar territory to readers, then guide them back to the commonplace: a grown child reckoning with his father. A simple story really. One you see every day, but special to be read.
Abdurraqib, Hanif. Go Ahead in the Rain- Notes to A Tribe Called Quest. 2019.
Chee, Alexander. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays. 2018.
Cresswell, Tim. Maxwell Street: Writing and Thinking Place. 2019.
Deb, Siddhartha. The Light at the End of the World. 2023.
The animation of place in The Light at the End of the World goes beyond metaphor to build setting and furthermore to reveal to the reader the state of mind of the character who perceives, owns, or interacts with those landmarks. Buildings and objects and landmarks are described by having their own intentions, which has a metaphorical quality and also contributes to the text’s stretching of daily reality. This figurative language is not merely descriptive but hints at the agency of the setting in this complex novel that points its imaginative eyes to past and present colonization and exploitation in India.
This semester I want to work on building out the description in my essays, to learn more how description helps add emotional heft to my writing. I want to work on the balance in my writing, giving the reader more meat to chew and more funk to smell. Reading Deb’s novel gave me many tools to play around with.
Dederer, Claire. Monsters, a fan’s dilemma. 2023.
Dillard, Annie. Teaching a Stone to Talk. 2009.
hunter, kim d. The Official Report on Human Activity. Wayne State University Press, 2018
Johnson, Denis. Jesus’ Son. 2009.
Krapf, Norbert. Homecomings: A Writer’s Memoir. Indiana Historical Society Press, 2023.
Marcos, and Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Conversations with Durito. Autonomedia, 2005.
Morrison, Toni. The Source of Self-Regard. 2019.
---. Sula. 1973
Reed, Ishmael. Mixing It Up. Da Capo Press, 2008.
Jones, Jr. Robert. The Prophets. 2022.
Soriano, Jen. Nervous. 2023.
Soyinka, Wole. Of Africa. 2012.
Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk. 1992.
In response to my essay inspired by Killer Mike’s Michael, Mike Magnuson recently suggested I dive deeper into crafting my persona in my nonfiction work, especially for my critical pieces. This week I turned to hip hop journalist and Black funk rocker Greg Tate to learn from an OG.
I found three threads that he weaved together: 1, his (s)word play, and slang style, 2, his cool demonstration of expertise and analysis, and 3, his stance as being up on the times and don’t give-a-shit opinionated.
Baba Greg lets you know from the get-go, that this he’s not writing a standard English, by-the-book review.
If this is your first time reading Tate, you’re left shaking your head wondering, What the hell does he mean? The first sentence is transgressive, declarative, and layered. Unique wordplay in which words hold opposite meanings of their (mainstream) connotations. As I read it forty years after it was published, I don’t know if this is his personal slang or part of his funky Black underground subculture. I do recognize that it’s Black communication.
Baba is having fun with language. He’s like a hooper on the court or a jazz master on the stage. I call Tate “Baba”, an African-centered term we use to respect male elders and Ancestors . Coz damn, flyboy in the buttermilk is eldering the shit out of me as an aspiring cultural critic.