New Directions

Volume 3 | Issue 4 Article 3

10-1-1976 Views on Black Literature: An Interview with Clarence Major E. Ethelbert Miller

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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

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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. is pushing it further to its limits so that can see it anywhere you have a war ... MILLER: Placing yourself among other whatever was not obvious or available on the women and children ... the women Black writers, who else do you think is the surface becomes more accessible. are raped unmercifully. You know it's the battling forms and definitions? MILLER: Let's move into some of the same thing all over-everywhere you see MAJOR: I'm working now on a ... along- themes that you've dealt with. I noticed it. It says something very horrible about side working on this novel ... I'm working that throughout your novels and even us. But Vietnam, of course, I think is a on an essay that will also be a talk. And some of your poems there is a considera- special horror-an absolute special hor- in it I'm trying to examine what I call the ble degree of sex and violence. Is there ror but I don't know if you wanted me to tradition of experimental Black fiction .. any relationship?Are you equating the talk about that. experimental and innovative Black fic- sexual act with being a violent act? MILLER: I just wanted to ask you that tion. And I see people like Fran Ross, question in relationshi p to your work. Let's Charles Wright, Ishmael Reed, William MAJOR: Not necessarily. All Night Visi- move into your most recent novel, Reflex Demby, George Schuyler, Jean Toomer, tors, which is the first thing that would and Bone Structure. I notice ...I came Alice Walker-Alice Walker in her book, come to mind, sex is used as a kind of across about two or three reviews. I call In Love and Trouble, has a lot of innova- alternative to brutality. The young nar- them mentions. To me no one has dealt tions there; and what I mean by innova- rator and the central character is a Black with the book in terms of what the book is tions? I mean anything that is a departure man who's returning from a violent war about. Most reviewers have written about from the worn out norm.Whether its in [Vietnam] and he has nothing-no job- the Fiction Collective, but in your words subject matter or whether its in technique nothing-absolutely nothing that he can what is Reflex and Bone Structure about? or form. I would place among my list of hold onto but himself-his body. And it's writers of departure (I like to call them) the last natural thing in the world that he MAJOR: I was trying to ... well first of people like Zora Neale Hurstonwho wrote, has and his body is,you know-he essen- all ... Let me go back and see if I under- Of Mules and Men, which Ithink is a revo- tially is a peaceful person and the expres- stand ... see if I can explain what I really lutionary book and, Their Eyes Were sion of that peace I guess in its natural had in mind. The first draft was meant to Watching God, which is probably- if not outlet for him would be through sex. Ac- ... was really written for myself. I really the first feminist novel by a woman-the tually, I think Eli Bolton comes along in a wasn't sure if I wanted to publish it. I was first feminist novel by a Black woman. In real tradition. doing something almost in a state of des- other words, she was concerned with the MILLER: Do you see any relationship pair because Iwasn't happy with my work, http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss4/3 2 personal liberation of a woman and racial between your work and what maybe Van the writing I had done up ti II that point. Miller: Views on Black Literature: An Interview with Clarence Major

6 And I was sort of pacing myself in a way but you can't do that here. Imagine sitting make other people care about what you're when I sat down and started working on at a typewriter for 17 hours. So, No was doing. that first draft and the thing that I felt was written over a period of-weill dashed off MILLER: You sound as if you think Black that I could put anything on paper for the the first draft of No in three months and poets have not been doing that? first time-because no one's gonna read then put it away and didn't touch it for a MAJOR: I know I can think of a few Black it-to hell with everybody, you know, this whole summer. Then I went back and I poets who have handled the historical is mine. And it was a very liberating feel- think I worked on it a year- just slowly. thing very well. There's Gerald Barrax ing, you know. I said this is mine and I can I just can't sit down and write a novel: a who has done some remarkable things. • just write anything that comes to my mind. novel has to grow almost without under- MILLER: I guess [Robert] Hayden you But then I began to notice after a few standing what it's going to be. would include? weeks or so that there was a form- there MILLER: Recently quite a number of new MAJOR: Definitely. was a kind of tendency toward control novels have come out. Charles Johnson MILLER: [Melvin] Tolson? that I really was concemed with ... things has a novel and quite a number of other MAJOR: Yeah, right. But of the contem- I thought t wasn't concerned with. But people. Do you feel the novel is suffering porary poets in my own age group Iwould there was a looseness that I had never or do you see it having a rebirth? say I can't think of one better than Barrax seen in my work before-a kind of loose- MAJOR: Ithink its both suffering and hav- who is the guy who wrote ... I forget the ness and it had something to do with my ing a rebirth. I think, in order for the title of his book [Another Kind of Rain, attitude toward what I was doing and I novel to be reborn, it has to die constantly. Published in 1970 by the Pittsburgh Uni- wasn't all uptight about, well, you know, It's interesting-the connection you men- versity Press.] but anyway it was pub- this and that ... People aren't going to be tion-Charles Johnson. Seems a lot of lished by the University of Pittsburgh able to understand this. Black men are writing novels about Black Press. He has, I think, a masterpiece of a MILLER: You weren't concerned about women. poem that deals with the slave trade. It's that. You weren't writing for a particular MILLER: What about someone like Gayl about 30 pages long. It's a saga. It's an audience. Jones? How she portrays ... overwhelming poem. I published it in a MAJOR: Right. I wasn't. Suddenly I was MAJOR: It's interesting. Gayl has, I think, magazine called Works. I was guest edi- just doing this for myself. Then when I a very ... you mean looking at her the tor of Works. I can't think of another poem finished it I thought it was very simple. other way? Her image of men isn't very that deals that successfully with the slave MILLER: How long did it take you to write bright at all. I just finished her second trade with all its Christian implications Reflex? novel and it's very bleak. I did a review of and European sensibi lity and the Africans, MAJOR: Well, the first draft I put together it for Library Journal. I gave it an excellent and so on. in six months; and I just didn't work very review but it's not a happy book- it's a MILLER: You've published quite a num- hard. very unhappy book- it's a mysterious ber of people. Looking at your anthology, MILLER: Was that short or long in com- and tortured book. I won't go into it right The New Black Poetry, how did you ap- parison to how long it took you to write now. proach it? What types of writers were you your other novels? MILLER: Okay. I really want to ask you trying to bring together? MAJOR: They were all different, you some questions about your poetry.You MAJOR: Well I wasn't thinking so much know. All Night Visitors took five years, did a book, Cotton Club, which I thought about the writers; I was thinking in terms off and on. I never have had a systematic was interesting. It seemed to focus on a of the poems- good poems that I feIt working habit. If I have to do an essay I particular point in time. Do you think that were.good; and that was my only guide- can sit down and write an essay in two or this is something that poets need to do, line really. So it was a very subjective three days-maybe in one day, if I am perhaps go back and recapture and tell kind of process. I looked through a lot of lucky, but I'm not the kind of person who historical events? bad poems to find the good ones. can get up in the morning and go to the MAJOR: I think we have to find our sub- MILLER: You still have quite a number of typewriter everyday. I don't do it. I can't ject matter wherever our emotional en- people in that anthology who went on- do it. And it depends on where I am living, ergy takes us. If that is what really moves since that book was printed-to become for example. Parts of All Night Visitors you. I think you have to really be moved major writers. were written in and I could work deeply. Whether it's a historical episode MAJOR: That's true. I'm very happy about for 16, 17, 20 hours there because of the in the lives of Black people or whatever. that. But I didn't have any guidelines ex- whole atmosphere. It lent itself to that It has to be something you feel at a gut- cept my own taste. And I'll tell you another kind of thing. I lived in a village where level in order to give it the kind of energy thing: I was looking more at technique Publishedthere by Digital were Howard no telephones @ Howard, University,for example, and Iife that wi II sustain it. So that you can and structure than I was at subject matter.3 New Directions, Vol. 3 [], Iss. 4, Art. 3

MILLER: That's the thing that you em- time when people are dealing primarily there's a lack of knowledge of what's 7 phasized in your introduction and also in with themes and ideology. going on? your collection of essays, Dark and Feel- MAJOR: That may be, but I think what we MAJOR: I think there's a lack of knowl- ing. This might be my own bias but I clas- sometimes forget is that the message- edge and I think where there's a lot of sify you among people who are empha- people are so concerned with the mes- interest there's a lack of expertise and a sizing not ideology but rather craft. Do sage and I'm not minimizing it because I lot of the students who really would care you see any dialogue or lack of dialogue realize the message is always there about reading contemporary poetry (like between the different types of writers? whether it's implicit or explicit. It's there the kinds of things you'd find in Hoo-Doo, MAJOR: Yeah. Ithink there's a lack of dia- and every form of art has a message, the only magazine in the area that's pub- logue and I think it's unfortunate, because, right. But it seems to me that it's ridicu- lishing a decent amount of Black poetry) whatever area of literature you're con- lous to not be concerned with the tech- don't know where to find it.A lot of the cemed with-whether it's the area of ex- nique through which that message be- kids that I work with here have never periments in technique or exploration of comes manifest. The technique is what heard of Hoo-Doo. Students who care the pol itical impl ications or subject matter makes it effective and the more effective about poetry, about writing it! -I think there's room for dialogue and I the technique is the more impact the mes- MILLER: Where do you think the fault think that various groups of writers con- sage will have. Whether it's an under- lies? Is it with the teacher or the student? cemed with various things have a lot to stated message or whether it's a more MAJOR: Well I think it lies with the teach- offer to each other. And they should com- explicit message ... the kind you would er and the student. I think it lies in the municate and talk. The problem I think aim for in an essay. system. I think a university like this should isn't so much that there's no means for MILLER: What do you consider to be the get behind a magazine like that, for exam- communication, I think the whole thing is function of art? ple-not only just one magazine. There complicated by a kind of commercialism MAJOR: Well, it has many functions. I'm could be a writing program in a school aside from the little personality problems sure you would agree with me that art this size. that are always there. But there's a kind of doesn't have one function. I think before MILLER: What about-I don't mean to commercialism and a kind of competition industrialization ... you even look at the add on another question - but a Fiction that's always in the way and it's encour- people who moved art into museums- Collective is written about in the reviews aged rather than putaside.lt'sencouraged the Europeans. After it moved into the of your book. How does it operate? by the critical climate and by the whole museums it became an isolated thing MAJOR: The Fiction Collective started nature of publishing. from the community-from the center of out as an alternative to the fact that com- MILLER: Do you think that one of the life. Even if you look at pre-Christian art or mercial houses generally have decided reasons could be that writers are also say primitive Christian art you notice a they cannot afford to keep a slow selling adopting the roles of critics? tendency toward a non-representational book in print for a long time. They say MAJOR: Yeah. Right. When Iwas living in use of art, you know, and the farther you'd they lose money. I guess they do. In effect, , a lot of us used to get together go back into European art the more func- this says to the writer of quality fiction that -Ishmael Reed, John Williams, Ronald tional the art becomes- it's on pottery- either there is no market or one so scarce Fair, Joe Johnson, Ron Welburn-about it's on rugs. you can hardly see it.Anyway, the Collec- tive started at . Jonathan 10 or 15 of us and we would talk about MILLER: You're bringing up something these problems. No one was doing any which I gather a lot of people overlook Baumback, Peter Spielberg and a few serious criticism of literature. No one was and that's the fact that you are an artist. other writers in the New York area started it. We have a growing list of members and really doing anything and I think the con- Not just a novelist or a poet but you paint, sensus there-and I'm sure it was going right? we've published 12 books. The Collective operates like this: we invest in our own on allover the country wherever Black MAJOR: Right. Well I started out ... books.The individual author receives all writers gathered - the consensus was MILLER:Are you still painting? the income from his or her book till the that we had to do it ourselves. I personally MAJOR: Yeah.Just for myself, though. investment has been returned; then, the don't feel that I can write bri lIiant criticism. MILLER: I'd like to get your views on author splits profits with the Collective. I know what I feel about books but I don't poetry here in Washington. Some of the It's working well, I eamed back my invest- think that-I don't have an analytical things the English Department is doing. I ment, most of it anyway, right away. mind. I don't have that kind of mentality. know for example that Howard University MILLER: Thank you. 0 MILLER: But you seem to be emphasiz- lacks a literary journal.Do you find that ing craft and how things are put together, when you're teaching your classes that whihttp://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss4/3ch I think would be very important at a poetry isn't appreciated as much or 4