An Interview With Welton Smith Essay Research

An Interview With Welton Smith Essay, Research Paper

from Journal of Black Poetry (1972)

JBP: Last night, when we were talking, you said you were hunting for a

verb. What kind of verb are you looking for.

WS: Hunting for a verb — I was actually talking about a predicate as

it functions in a sentence. You know, one of our problems. . . . Well, first, let’s talk

about the kinds of verbs that won’t do; then second, why assume that western civilization

can give you such a thing as a sentence. . . and we don’t call that into question. Maybe a

new thing altogether is needed.

O.K., the verbs that won’t do are the kinds of verbs that if seen on a page, most

people in western civilization would automatically assume . . . assume that something

white is going to be the direct object of the verb. Those verbs won’t do. But there are

other verbs that jar people by their existence on the page — they call blackness to mind,

and not whiteness. Like cut, dig, love. Some nouns become verbs, too, like Johnson

(L.B.J.). Johnsoned, johnsoning, I’m gonna johnson him –

JBP: Why love. Why do you put love there.

WS: Mainly because if you don’t know all of yourself, you don’t have

the capacity to love, only the capability of being in love. Anybody is capable. But

capacity indicates a wholeness. The verb, the action, takes place in you because you have

the capacity. That’s why bloods and whites could never share that verb in western

civilization. You have to be whole to love — and you can’t love whites. To try to love

them undercuts your wholeness as a blood.

JBP: No wholeness, no love.

WS: Yes, but then, the culture we live in removes large areas of

ourselves, from black people. So, in general, we have little love with each other.

This is public self I’m talking about, not private. By public I mean being black in

the U.S., as opposed to being a black person, a particular black person.

JBP: Private self and public self. Maybe we can come back to that.

WS: O.K., let’s get to questioning the sentence as a way of

communicating. A sentence, linguistically, is a message that begins when a sound or symbol

starts off a series of sounds or symbols and ends when a sound or symbol indicates an end.

But a sentence is also a period of confinement, a sort of prison. And yet the sentence is

perfect for the kind of communication given to me by the culture I want to break

through–. I have two parts of me I can turn into weapons–. Let me put it like this, the

message aspect of a sentence is very much like the ability to make poetry, and it is at my

disposal; the other thing is knowing you are confined — that knowledge becomes a weapon

to break out of confinement with. I’ll explain that. Poetry in a healthy culture is a

continuous process. Art is no special thing in certain societies. It’s just something you

might do. And the artistic message that comes from life is continuous — it’s there, like

when you feel at peace with your neighbors, when you are digging on something. I’m trying

to break out of the confinement that puts me, and all bloods, in a bind. I want to break

out, and bring out other brothers, by making the message continuous, rather than the

start-stop, start-stop thing. . .

Radio waves are always there. Tuning in to them doesn’t create sound waves. You tune in

to a continuous message. But when whites get a hold of them (radio waves), they bring in

– build in — frustration and paranoia — like make you want to brush your teeth or take

a bath right then. They interrupt, jam the continuous waves. Rather than using peace as a

basis to sell wares, they go into jive by building up frustration and paranoia — and

people go out and buy the soap or toothpaste. Like that.

But the verb I want is one that gives complete freedom and complete parity to my

private and public self. So then there is some relation between how I am perceived, in

terms of color, height, dress, and how I am, the private me. Someone might ask, aren’t you

just asking how to be black and american and yourself. To that I would answer, no, because

the questioner probably doesn’t know about the public offenses commited against me and

those who look like me, and the capacity of whites to make people forget those offenses or

make them afraid to remember those offenses. . . . And they make you forget the

huge amount of beautiful but unclaimed memories that are in the land, the air but, you

know, they are just "Bad for business." The business of America is business. I’m

talking about the things I am forced to believe have happened, because they don’t happen

now, and the things I am forced to cry about, because I see them all the time — those

kinds of things that make you feel too drained to go on in this country. And the things

you are forced to believe, like everyone can’t be a bastard, so you must believe there was

someone who wasn’t. And to see so much p

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