Views on Black Literature: an Interview with Clarence Major E
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New Directions Volume 3 | Issue 4 Article 3 10-1-1976 Views on Black Literature: An Interview with Clarence Major E. Ethelbert Miller Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections Recommended Citation Miller, E. Ethelbert (1976) "Views on Black Literature: An Interview with Clarence Major," New Directions: Vol. 3: Iss. 4, Article 3. Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Miller: Views on Black Literature: An Interview with Clarence Major ON TH[ Hill Clarence Major 4 Poet-Novelist Clarence Major, who was MILLER: So you didn't start off with a writer-in-residence with the English De- concrete objective so to speak? partment during the 1975-76 academic MAJOR: Not really. I was really trying to year, was interviewed recently by E.Ethel- teach myself something about how to put bert Miller, director of the Afro-American a novel together. I really didn't know much Resource Center at Howard University about how to write a novel. It took five and co-ed itor of Synergy: An Anthology of years to get All Night Visitors in the form Washington, D. C. Black Poetry. Author that it finally came out in. But the thing I of several literary works, Major's latest wanted to say about that is basically it's book is Reflex And Bone Structure. His a conventional novel with some surrealis- other books include, All Night Visitors tic overtones or undertones, changes and (1969), The Dictionary of Afro-American so on. In other words, Iwas operating from Slang (1970), Private Line (1971), The the assumption that a novel had to be a Cotton Club (1972), and Siaveship and certain thing and I was trying to discover Relationship (1973). In the following inter- how to make the novel do what I'd been view, Major discusses his writing, other told a novel should do. Black experimental writers in America, MILLER: Have you given up on defini- and the problems of Black literature. Ed. tions or have you developed your own? MAJOR: Well what I tried to do (I don't think I have developed any definitions), I tried to discover the possibilities ... I tried to discover a larger terrain ... I tried MILLER: In opening up this interview I'd Iike to first ask you what new things are to discover what a novel can be. This is you presently working on? also true with a poem. I try to discover not what a poem should be but what it can be. MAJOR: I'm working on a novel, Ethelbert, PHOTOGRAPHY BYROY LEWIS that's giving me hell. It's the biggest chal- MILLER: What are the limitations that you lenge that I've ever taken on- in terms of encountered in terms of the novels and MILLER: I don't find that in your ... (nov- a writing project. It's called Inlet. It's a in poetry? els) ... novel that, theoretically, should have no MAJOR: We talk about limitations ... we MAJOR: But what I try to do ... I try to central characters, and I also didn't want have to talk about ... I don't know if Iwant create the flavor and tone of everyday to have an idea as a center of focus, either. to use the word limitations but I know what speech-the way Black people might In others words, what I am trying to do is you mean. I think immediately: the first talk. Most of my characters are Black take the novel, the idea of the novel, the thing that comes to mind is language. The characters. But I try to do it not through concept of the novel and tum it in on itself. limitations imposed on the writer by the dialect but through syntax and through This is to dissolve some of the stale as- very nature of language. And then if you rhythm of language. Like I have charac- sumptions about the novel. start talking about the limitations of lan- ters in No, which is a Southem novel. No MILLER: Let's go back and look at some guage then what are you going to do? is set in the South. And the characters- of your previous novels. How does this MILLER: That's a question I wanted to Southern people-they don't talk in dia- differ from what you did in All Night Visi- ask you in terms of some of the problems lect. They talk in Southem rhythms. tors or even in Reflex and Bone Structure? that novelists and poets encounter in MILLER: Do you feel that your novels MAJOR: Well, All Night Visitors was kind dealing with language. You don't seem in should be read aloud? of a hodge podge put together sort of your novels to alter the wording in terms MAJOR: I think it would help. Just like thing. It was scrapped out of three novels of maybe writing dialect or something reading a poem. I mean that it's an exten- that had in effect been fai lures. Novels like that. You know what I mean? Like sion of a printed page. I try to think of a that I somehow had not managed to write grammatical changes that you have? You novel as a kind of a lyrical entity. I'm not very well. So I took the best parts of three know what I'm saying? I was thinking of always successful in creating that. I have novels and brought them together and it Iike Kelley's Dunfords Travels Every- more success with short stories, for exam- just happened that at the time everything wheres, where he has changes ... you're ple. For instance, there is a short story I I was writing was thematically related. So reading something different. have. I didn't expect it to look as good as that the combination of those things ... MAJOR: Where he's capturing the flavor it did once it was published. When I first Publishedfinally by Digital I was Howard able to @ pullHoward it together. University, and tone of colloquial speech ... saw it in manuscri pt I thought it was lousy.1 ------ New Directions, Vol. 3 [], Iss. 4, Art. 3 VIEWS ON BLACK LITERATURE AN INTERVIEW WITH CLARENCE MAJOR Then I read it and said I'll publish this. liberation was secondary. And that's what Peebles was trying to do in [his film] 5 It's called "All American Cheese." It's I meant-in that sense it is a departure "Sweetback"? about the mythical Black girl and the from a tradition. MAJOR: Yeah. I think so, possibly. mythical white girl in college who are MILLER: What about-some of these wri- MILLER: Another question ... I know you friends, and so. And I just realized that ters OAe labels experimental; how much have a number of poems that deal with the short story by its very form is closerto of what they are doing originates in Black Vietnam-what are some of your personal the poem than the novel can ever be. culture and how much of it is borrowed? views concerning what the war meant MILLER: Which genre do you feel more MAJOR: I think what happens is, even to you as a writer? comfortable in? I know you have a repu- with the literature of departure there is, if MAJOR: You know I was never there. tation as a novelist; you also have a repu- you really look at it, if you look at the terms Vietnam was a television show- if you tation as a poet. Do you ever write poems of the departure: like Ralph Ellison's Invi- saw it at 6:00 every evening. But it was that tend to become chapters for your sible Man for example. It is a novel that really more than that. I am just saying to novels? is ultimately concerned with the destiny our national sensibi lity- unfortunately MAJOR: It works both ways.I've used and the plight of Black people, but it's a that's what it was-a television show.But poems and worked them into novels and departure in terms of treatment and so on on another level, if we want to get into I've used things that I have scrapped from from what Black writers have been doing the political implications and so on, had a novel and used as poems. But the cru- generally with that very same subject.So I been there-I try to imagine the horror. cial question for me, I think, the real an- I don't think there is a cut off point. I don't The rape scenes in All Night Visitors was swer to your question is: I'm not comforta- think the departure necessarily implies an attempt on my part-not so much to ble with any form. I'm always fighting the that there is a break with the concerns of imagine what Vietnam was like-but what form. I'm always at war with the form be- one's culture and heritage-I think it's an man's brutality has been to man all along cause I want to try to turn it inside out and extension. I think what it comes down to throughout history in every country. You see what's there.