When M.K. Asante Jr. published his first book “Like Water
Running Off My Back” in 2002, he was eager to establish
himself as a serious writer with all the right answers. To the
winner of the American Academy of Poet’s Corrie Poetry Prize
and UCLA film graduate student, that meant voicing his opinions on
major issues such as racial inequality and social injustice in his
work and shying away from anything that might conjure up images of
the sentimental or romantic.
When confronted by a journalist three years ago who wanted to
know why his writing always centered around sociopolitical issues,
Asante dismissed the question, saying, “I can’t write
about flowers.”
Well, things have changed a little since then.
“Now I am writing about flowers,” Asante said.
“The image of me now and three years ago says a lot about my
growth as an artist. I see flowers as a metaphor now, rather than
what they actually are.”
Asante is currently on a book tour in promotion of his new
collection of poetry, “Beautiful. And Ugly Too,” with
plans to have a reading at the African Firefighters In Benevolent
Association in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 29. The book title is
a line from Langston Hughes’ 1926 essay “The Negro
Artist and the Racial Mountain,” in which Hughes argues that
black writers who want to be known as writers rather than black
writers are essentially saying that they want to be white. The line
stuck out to Asante, who turned the idea over in his mind and
explored other arguments and angles besides the one on which Hughes
had concluded.
“It’s something I’ve been debating over the
past four or five years because it’s something we all
struggle with in a racist society,” Asante said. “You
want to be the best poet, the best journalist, and, coincidentally,
if you are the best poet, you are then the best Negro poet. A lot
of these poems are poetic interpretations of Langston’s essay
because a lot of those issues are things black artists in 2005 are
still struggling with.”
The essay and Asante’s ensuing thoughts inspired him to
write his own “Beautiful. And Ugly Too” as a kind of
theme and variation on Hughes’ piece, but without the
certainty and with more sensitivity in his writing than he had a
few years ago.
“One of the poems in the book, “˜Seeing Red,’
is an extension of “˜Beautiful. And Ugly Too,'”
Asante said. “I was born in Zimbabwe. Their gold mines are
the most beautiful things ever, those gems shining in the dirt
““ until you see the 12-year-old down in the mines picking up
the stones. “˜Seeing Red’ is about Paris, which is a
beautiful city, until you realize that that brilliance was built
because of the rape of the African continent in Senegal and the
Cote d’Azur. You can’t just see the beauty; you have to
recognize the ugly, too.”
In “Beautiful. And Ugly Too,” Asante tried a
different approach than the one he used in his first book to make
sure all of his thoughts were effectively conveyed on the page.
“When I wrote the first book, I was really interested in
reading poetry, but one of the common criticisms people would make
was that people got things when I read that they didn’t get
in the book. That troubled me as a writer, because I wanted
everything on the page. If you listen to recordings of Langston
Hughes reading his poetry, he was horrible and monotone, but his
words were so good. The spoken word perishes, but the written word
is eternal, so I tried to get everything out in the written words
this time,” Asante said.
But while Asante may feel that his writing in the first book
could have used some improvement, that certainly didn’t stop
it from winning an American Poetry prize. In addition, as an
undergraduate student studying abroad in England, he noticed
another measure of success ““ one of the professors at the
University of London had his first book listed on the class
syllabus.
But Asante tried not to let his previous accomplishments put too
much pressure on the writing of his second book.
“I don’t let anything make or break me as a
writer,” Asante said. “I don’t think about
(awards). The pressure I feel is pressure from myself. I make a
point not to look at my book because I’ve grown so much as an
artist since then. It’s always frightening because I received
a lot of praise (for the first book), but I’ve changed so
much since then. I hope people who liked my last book are ready for
that change. People will always be attached to your old stuff,
though, so you can’t totally disregard it.”
Asante decided to pursue his MFA in film rather than creative
writing because it was a medium he knew less about and one that
still had a certain amount of mystery surrounding it. The
transition from poet to screenwriter has not caused him much
difficulty.
“Film is an extension of poetry. Poetry is about the
economy of words and using words concisely, and screenwriting uses
words in a similar way,” Asante said. “I like writing
in every medium I can because I may have an idea, but it
doesn’t necessarily translate to poetry. I have a nonfiction
book coming out in 2006 and a fiction book probably the year after
that.”
The Philadelphia native grew up in a household where both of his
parents were published poets and started writing his first rhymes
in kindergarten, although he didn’t start writing poetry
seriously until high school. Upon first arriving in Los Angeles,
Asante wanted to head southeast of Westwood to the ghetto and see
the side of the city that was hidden behind the palm trees and
multi-million dollar houses of the West Side. He was, however,
disappointed to find that the black culture in Los Angeles
couldn’t rival that of his hometown.
“Philly is a black city. It has black mayors and
officials, but it’s a very poor blue-collar city. There are
lots of drugs. But it’s a soulful place. There’s a
strong sense of culture rooted in music and poetry,” Asante
said. “There is less of an African American community in L.A.
You have to want to get culture in L.A. to get it, whereas in
Philly, you just breathe it. Maybe it’s the wintertime,
struggling through that.”
And Los Angeles only reflects a void in the larger black
culture. As someone who expresses the opinion that artists should
provoke not only thought, but action as well, Asante is largely
discouraged by the current work being produced and often chooses to
look further back in American history for poetic inspiration.
“It’s up to writers to take us past where we were as
readers to a place we hadn’t yet considered. I don’t
feel like there are enough contemporary artists doing that,”
Asante said. “Hip-hop is a whole lot of black artists who
aren’t saying anything. But don’t get me started on
that.”
Asante prefers artists such as Miles Davis, Neena Freelon and
Maurice Brown. He prefers to listen to music without words so they
don’t distract his own thoughts, which with the current state
of affairs in America have turned once again to sociopolitical
issues.
“(Hurricane Katrina) is such a precise depiction of who is
left behind in this country,” he said. “The ultimate
metaphor of race and class relations in America for me is seeing
all of those black faces left to die. I wasn’t surprised by
it at all.”
Indeed, those themes of human suffering and racism are ones
Asante likes to incorporate into his writing because of their
relevance to people across the globe, from people living in cities
such as Compton and Harlem to those living in African cities.
But while Asante may spend much of his time contemplating heavy,
universal themes, he is surprisingly relaxed when it comes to
future plans.
“I just take it day by day,” Asante said.
“Hopefully, (five years from now) I’ll be writing and
contributing to our society ““ raising questions where they
need to be raised and asking questions where they need to be
asked.”