FUSE INTERVIEW RHYTHM AND RESISTANCE maintaining· the social connection Clive Robertson interviewed poets ing readings separately, and then we in their development too, and how to Lillian Allen, Devon Haughton and started to be on the same bill together. generate related activities in our com­ Clifton Joseph in March '83, just I had heard about Devon from several munity. We now all come under the prior to their departure for England people, and then I saw him for the rubric of Domestic Bliss. where they attended and performed at first time at York University, and Lillian Allen: I met Krisantha at the Second Annual Black Radical and from that time we all started to work his book launching. Himani Bannerji Third World Book Fair in Brixton. together, with Krisantha, • and moved thought it was important that we meet closer and closer together. and read together - she was an en­ FUSE: How did you come together, The idea to publish came to me couraging factor in both our writings how long have you been working because of Lillian's publication for years. Then I heard about Devon, together, and where did you come Rhythm an' Hard Times. I had never and hooked up with him, and we from? thought of it, I just read the stuff to started reading together as a team, Clifton Joseph: I was familiar with people to get the work out, but after because we were doing and saying Lillian's work more than anyone else, the success of Lillian's book I thought basically the same thing, from dif­ and I had been working with her for more seriously about it and that's how ferent perspectives. We do continue to some time on various projects, not Metropolitan Blues came about. do separate things too. I think that only literary but social, political and From there we started to think and what pulled us together was the community oriented programs. She talk about some of the other aspects realization that we needed to organize had been doing her stuff over the past of writing; the process, the marketing this stuff. It was gaining in populari­ decade, and we had been having and production, how it relates to our ty, and we wanted to pull upon the discussions since the mid 70's on the political environment. We thought strength of an organized collective to function of art, what we think it about how we can assist other people present an organized front. We are should be, what we are trying to do, •Kri antha Sri Bhaggiyadatta i a fellow poet who still thinking about it - publishing, the environment we are functioning work and performs with the group, living in Toronto and publi hing with Domestic Bliss; he was out of the how we can do more work, how we in, and so on. We had both been giv- country at the time of the interview. can make a living out of this and 32 FUSE Summer 1983 encourage and involve other people. yes of course we are pulling on the r-n,•'lll!-1111:-·�·111� ....Cl) Devon Haughton: I had been hear­ musical influences. I agree, it is a factor. E <( ing about Lillian for a long time; the CJ: There is heavy musicality to the same guy who told Clifton about me poetry that we do. The popularity of er also told me about Clifton, and so we reggae over the last number of years, started meeting - me, Clifton, Lillian and its international acceptance has laid and Krisantha, and a couple of the ground work for dub poetry to months after my first reading the four develop, as Linton Kwesi Johnson and of us were doing a show together. others from Jamaica have developed it, LA: I would hear about Devon in from the music itself. There are always the Spanishtown community of musical influences, because we grew up Toronto, in the barbershop and the in an environment where music is very stores because both Devon and I are important on a day to day basis, so it from that town, both from large, was only natural that music should be a fairly well known families. part of the poetry. In Toronto it's pro­ CJ: Basically, all of us were doing blematic because even the musical our own work, and because of the en­ bands have a hard time getting their vironment, because of a general wave work recognised; on one level there is a of poetic activity in Toronto, more lot of popularity, but on another and more people, even some of the they've come up against stone walls. In older ones who had put their books up Toronto, bands like Truth and Rights, on the shelf, came back on to the and Gayap, and before that, Crack of scene. There was a renewed interest in Dawn exposed people to music created poetry, especially in poetry as perfor­ by West Indians, so it was a little easier mance. for us. We have a lot of music in the poetry, Poetry as performance plenty rhythm, plenty music, and we even refer to musicians in the works. I I have always thought that poetry needs think one of the reasons for our to be taken out to the people; some of popularity is that we are able to do two the ways that it is taught in highschool, things: we are able to do a musical some of the ways it is analysed by presentation in a poetic style, and a academics are too sterile, so the poetry poetic presentation in a musical style. In stays on the counter, it stays in the this way we manage to get to some library turning to dust, and who wants places where a musical band might not. to turn into dust? I have always had an The music has laid some of the ground interest in taking it out to the people, work for us, but the poetry too is mak­ wherever they may be. I have seen it as ing ground, feeding back into the my responbsibility to react to the situa­ music. tion and go wherever people are LA: In terms of our work, I think that gathered together to espouse this form we all draw from our experiences, our of activity to them - not just poetry collective and cultural experiences to Lillian Allen dealing with our specific context, but enhance our message and our perfor­ go along? How would you keep it go­ any anti-establishment, anti-oppression mance and the form that we are involv­ ing? What happens to a lot of musician poetry, a poetry of resistance. It was ed in. The music influence is inherent in is that it gets more and more difficult as only natural that we should come the rhythm, but we have gone outside they get more and more popular, when together last summer. The activity the traditional restrictions and boun­ the pre sure is on them to do something peaked for us when we all got together, daries to call upon our own social, different. and then in the fall of '82 we started cultural and historical resources, and it CJ: With us I don't think it will be moving on from there. is interesting to people who have difficult. I myself have always done this FUSE: It always seems that when preconceptions about poetry, they like sort of thing, mostly not for money - there is a new thrust in music, the poets it. at African Liberation Day ceremonies, that are associated with that music are FUSE: One thing I would like to ask political meetings, social benefits, vari­ brought up with that musical develop­ you, since I have seen you a few times, is ety shows and so on, just to keep it in ment. It happened on the West Coast, it about the fact that a lot of musicians people's minds. So, before I even con­ happened in the 50's and 60's. Often like to think that they go out of their sidered publishing, before I considered poets who perform their work are in­ way to make contact with their au­ going to the night clubs and talking to fluenced in this way. Do you think that dience, and some of them are more suc­ the press, I always had the conception this sort of a community is developing cessful than others. This seems to be that the work I do must relate to people. here? very much a part of what you do; you They must see it as being useful and LA: I never ,thought of it that way, are not only in very close contact with having some connection to their hearts but indeed, it might be a factor. I would your audience, but you're informing when they hear it. Now that there is say that in our poetry we are saying them about what you do as you go more interest in the work, we've till things that people don't generally along. I would like to ask you what is kept that contact, and in the last couple associate with poetry or art. We are happening to you as a group, what are of months we've done 4 or 5 benefits. If presenting it in an interesting way too, you trying to do, and do you think that people are having a meeting and they which has helped the popularity. And, you will be able to continue this as you want us to be there, on a political and FUSE Summer 1983 33 cultural level, then we will be there if we thi .