Raising a Ruckus on the First Day of BHM

Ruckus

affray [chiefly British], broil, donnybrook, fracas, fray, free-for-all, melee (also mêlée), rough-and-tumble, row, brawl, ruction

Related Words

battle, clash, combat, conflict, contest, fisticuffs, handgrips, hassle, scrap, scrimmage, scuffle, skirmish, struggle, tussle; horseplay, roughhousing; altercation, argument, dispute, kickup, quarrel, spat, squabble, tiff, wrangle

Poets (people I know David Winter, Elizabeth Hoover, Keisha-Gaye Anderson, Jennifer Milich—and people I don’t—Saeed Jones, e.e. cummings, Robert Hayden, Nikki G., June Jordan, on and on and on, and on and on and on) have been all up in my face lately, making me think, and I have to say I'm liking it. They should be all up in my face, my head, my brain, pulling me over and away from the foolishness set out there to distract me and “foolish me up,” drain me, keep me from creating and contributing and helping and living. Keep me from.

What brought this on is that, with the death of Amiri Baraka, once known as LeRoi Jones, I was reminded that the state of New Jersey, my home state, which I love very much despite all the jibes and catcalls and recent shenanigans, eliminated the honor of poet laureate rather than allow Baraka to keep it after he wrote "Somebody Blew Up America," in which he stated that Israel knew about the 9/11 attack before it happened and told its people to stay away from the World Trade Center.

Now, I'm not here to get into a brawl about the right or wrong of his words or defend or criticize them; I have my own thoughts about the poem and if you are at all interested, you can call me and we can have a conversation. I will say that the state of New Jersey, perhaps, was not clear as to whom they were giving the honor. Whatever Baraka was, he wasn't the wise old black sage that I think New Jersey wanted him to be.

Some people didn't get it when it came to Amiri Baraka. Just like so many people who paid lip service to Nelson Mandela, paid it to that part of him that was "good" and didn’t really know him until they read his obituaries; or didn’t know that Martin Luther King, Jr. had another side.

Or who justify their hero worship of Malcolm X because he "came to his senses" and loved everyone after he pilgrimaged to Mecca (I can tell you with authority, and it came right from the mouth of Manning Marable, who saw with his own eyes El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz's notes on the manuscript that Alex Haley was editing, and Malcolm’s notes did not match the finished product). But then what memoir is ever just straight facts?

From Manning's mouth to my ears Malcolm X was not ready to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" with everybody.  He had opened his heart, but not everyone was coming in, not yet. But he got shot, and Alex Haley died, and Manning is dead, and now so is Amiri Baraka (whom I glimpsed once while visiting Manning at Columbia. He was administering a final exam to a bunch of students who looked half-scared out of their wits. It made me glad I had gotten my degree years ago.)

Amiri Baraka was a rabble rouser and a human, with flaws. There are things I’ve read about him I really didn't like. A wise person I know told me—and I’m very much paraphrasing him—that he handles the paradox of the flawed mentor or hero(ine) by owning that the he is giving propers to a person who can at times be despicable.  That is what, I think, I’m attempting here.

Poets can be and often are troublemakers, at least in my world, and I’m glad for it. Even Mother Goose rhymes had political underpinnings in Tudor England. It’s not just pretty words. Since when is a poet—or any artists for that matter—not supposed to be controversial, stir up the pot, make us think?

If anyone should be raising a ruckus it should be a poet.

For your consideration: An Evening with Poets Honoring and Celebrating the Lives of Poets Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka