CARLETON ri A%fVirf of Literature <&llje Liberal Arts VOL. XVIII, No. 3, Winter 1980 A RALPH ELLISON FESTIVAL FEATURES AND REVIEWS Ralph Ellison: Going to the Territory Portrait of Inman Page Perspective of Literature R. W. B. Lewis: The Ceremonial Imagination of Ralph Ellison Nathan A. Scott, Jr.: Ellison's Vision of Communitas John Wright: Dedicated Dreamer, Consecrated Acts: Shadowing Ellison Chimed Chants from Dark and Dutiful Dyelis John F. Callahan: Democracy and the Pursuit of Narrative Leon Forrest: Luminosity from the Lower Frequencies Melvin Dixon: O, Mary Rambo, Don't You Weep Robert Stepto: Literacy and Hibernation: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man Curtis Harnack: Out of the Mouths of Landladies Barry Beckham: How We Decided, Go With Richard Michael S. Harper: Remembering Robert E. Hayden FICTION Jack M. Winters: In the Cell Late at Night POETRY by Michael S. Harper, Terri Barnes, Frank Chipasula SPECIAL GUEST EDITORS: Michael S. Harper and John Wright ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are indebted to the New York University School of Law for its permission to reprint Ralph Ellison's "Perspective of Literature," which originally appeared in American Law: The Third Century, The Law Bicentennial Volume, 1976. We are grateful also to John Foraste for the photograph of Ralph Ellison accepting the Yarde portrait of Inman Page. Robert Stepto's essay is excerpted from his book, From Behind the Veil, University of Illinois Press, 1979. The Carleton Miscellany is not an official publication of Carleton College, nor are the views expressed in its pages necessarily those of the College. The editors assume no responsibility for the views of individual contributors. Copyright 1980 by Carleton College Cover design and title by Betsy Edwards Back cover composite and Festival photos by Lawrence Sykes 1 r CMLEToS»_.yjJCLCifjy . J^SCBIAHY A %e\U tf °f Literature <&• tlje Lihra Iyirts Advisory Editors Richard Wollheim Philip Martin John Wain A.K. Ramanujan Chris Wallace-Crabbe Editorial Board Robert Bonner Paul Riesman Charles Carlin Davis Taylor Roy Elveton Robert Tisdale David Porter John Wright Keith Harrison. Editor Donald Schier, Review Editor George Soule, Fiction Editor Carolyn Soule, Managing Editor Editorial Assistants Dorothy Grice Joan Meyer CONTENTS VOL. XVIII, NO. 3, WINTER 1980 Comments, Tributes: A First Word, A Last Word by Keith Harrison 5 Introduction A Ralph Ellison Festival by Michael S. Harper ... 6 Going to the Territory by Ralph Ellison 9 How We Decided, Go With Richard by Barry Beckham 26 A Portrait of Inman Page by Ralph Ellison 28 Poems by Terri Barnes 32 The Ceremonial Imagination of Ralph Ellison by R. W.B. Lewis 34 Out of the Mouths of Landladies by Curtis Harnack 38 Ellison's Vision of Cummunitas by Nathan A. Scott, Jr 41 Democracy and the Pursuit of Narrative by John F. Callahan 51 Perspective of Literature by Ralph Ellison 69 Luminosity From the Lower Frequencies by Leon Forrest 82 O, Mary Rambo, Don't You Weep by Melvin Dixon 98 Poems by Michael S. Harper 105 Literacy and Hibernation: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man by Robert Stepto 112 Dedicated Dreamer, Consecrated Acts: Shadowing Ellison by John Wright 142 In the Cell, Late at Night (story) by Jack M. Winters 200 Poem by Frank Chipasula 214 Chimed Chants from Dark and Dutiful Dyelis: A Review Essay by John Wright 215 Remembering Robert Hayden by Michael S. Harper 231 Notes on Contributors 236 Index to Volume XVIII 238 A FIRST WORD, A LAST WORD With this issue of The Miscellany we are forced to take a rest. After much discussion, the Administration of the College, has decided that, in a time of budgetary constraint, the magazine, because of its small circulation, will have to bow to other needs of the College. This is a very sad time for many of us as the lineage of The Miscellany is a long and noble one. We have much to be proud of; in the field of American Letters we can hold our heads high. Yet it cannot be denied that in a period of inflation, recession — or whatever its technical name might be — the withering dialectic of money must have its say. One of the things we have been trying to do recently is to chart some new areas in Literature and the Liberal Arts. We have had a Midwest Issue, an International Issue and had planned issues on Women in Literature and Commonwealth Literature. It is by a curious and fitting irony that we conclude our twenty-year span with an issue devoted to — until recently — the most neglected area of life and letters in this country: Black America. We are especially proud to honor Ralph Ellison in this issue and to give it over, almost entirely to a discussion of his work. John Wright and Michael Harper, our guest editors, have gathered some excellent material together and we thank them for a demanding task well done. Hence our jacket cover is chosen for two reasons: we are in mourning. Yet as we mourn we rejoice. We do not go out with a whimper, but with a sense of new life — a life that many established literary journals have barely taken account of. And now we must thank our friends. They are too numerous to be named individually. Let me, however, select a few whose support has been outstanding, while I apologize to all those stalwart writers and readers whom I cannot name here, but without whom this magazine could not have existed. Wayne Carver, our former editor and our colleague, has shown both tough-mindedness and compassion throughout the life of this magazine and gave himself unstintingly for many years to continuing its encouragement of good writing. What man can find a thankyou adequate for that? The members of the Editorial Board in America, England and Australia have all shown the kind of loyalty that, these days, is as rare as it is sustaining. The members of the Carleton faculty have been equally concerned with the welfare of the magazine. Carolyn Soule, who has for many years been the Managing Editor also deserves special praise for splendid service sometimes in the teeth of great difficulties. Four other people deserve our highest praise: Don Schier, review Editor and George Soule, fiction Editor, who have given hundreds of hours of unremitting and unremunerative work for the magazine; Erling Larsen, former editor, dead these several years, who held on and strove for quality and achieved it; and, finally, Reed Whittemore — 'onlie begetter' — who may have the curious distinction of having, in part, invented all of us. This may be a lament for the makers, the scores of talented writers we have already published and those whom we might have published — a lament as a dark time of retrenchment comes on. But if it is a lament it is counter-balanced with feelings of great joy. We have had such excellent company. Keith Harrison GOING TO THE TERRITORY: ICONS OF GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORD: A MEDITATION ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF RALPH WALDO ELLISON Ethical schizophrenia you called it: come back to haunt the cattle-drive, Indians coming into blacktown because it's home; your father's will lies uncontested, his blood welling up in oil; 'Deep Second' hones its marks in Jimmy Rushing; Charlie Christian's father leads the blind. Such instruments arrange themselves at Gettysburg, at Chickamauga; the whites in Tulsa apologize in the separate library, all the books you dreamed of, fairy tales and Satchmo jesting to the court of St. James, infirmary is the saints already home. The hip connected to the thigh converges in tuberculosis; your mother's knees spank the planks of rectory, your father's image sanctified in documents, in acts won out on hallelujahs of "A" train, nine Scottsboro Boys spun upward over thresholds of Duke's dance. Dance and mask collect their greasepaint, idioms stand on bandstand, in stove­ pipe pants of riverman, gambling shoes, gold-toothed venom vexing sundown, the choir at sunrise-service cleansing a life on a jim crow funeral car. The first true phrase sings out in barnyard; the hunt in books for quail. Michael S. Harper "Geography is fate," Ralph Ellison once said, so we courted fate by bringing Ralph and Fanny Ellison to Brown University's campus during the first week of classes, September 19-21, 1979. The Rhode Island weather was providential, and friends and admirers came in number to pay homage to the Ellisons. At least one good reason for such a gathering was the hope that Ellison would return to his desk to write fiction, full time; he had just retired from his post as Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at New York University. Another reason was Ellison's great contribution, in the public sector, as an abiding trustee of consciousness and conscientiousness — his large service on commissions and committees. Another was his role as a teacher and mentor; for his generosity at close quarters is well- known to those who search the meanings in his fiction and essays and numerous 'silent theatres'. But the idea for the festival came more specifically from a "Teaching Creative Writing" symposium at the Library of Congress back in January, 1973. Ellison did not give a major address there, but he appeared on two panels, one on fiction, the other on non-fiction; and he waxed strong in the clinches, and in the late rounds. His vocal reaffirmation of the writer's high calling and territorial prerogatives suggested then that, for Ralph Ellison, "goin' to the territory" meant more than that flight to the Indian 'nations' recounted so often and with such relish in the tales of fugitive slaves: to Ellison it meant also the movement toward imaginative freedom this festival celebrates.