Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Marvin X, America's Rumi, Plato, Hafiz, Saadi
Marvin X, America's Rumi, Plato (Negro), Hafiz, Saadi
MarvinX, one of the movers and shakers of the 1960s Black Arts Movement, isalso considered the father of Muslim American literature, according toDr. Mohja Khaf, novelist and professor of English and Islamicliterature at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. In her essayTeaching Diaspora Literature: Muslim American literature as an emergingfield, she said, "Marvin X is
If thereis such a thing as Muslim American literature (MAL) and she argues thereis, "It begins with the Muslims of the Black Arts Movement (1965–75).The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of its iconic texts; it includesAmerican Sufi writing, secular ethnic novels, writing by immigrant andsecond-generation Muslims, and religious American Muslim literature.
Sonia Sanchez, whose A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1974) is the work of
her Muslim period. Amiri Baraka, whose A Black Mass (2002) renders theNation of Islam’s Yacoub genesis theology into drama. As with Sanchez,the author was Muslim only briefly but the influence of the Islamicperiod stretches over a significant part of his overall production.
as Marvin X."
Suheir Hammad, Palestinian New Yorker, diva of Def Poetry Jam (on Broadway and HBO),
whose tribute to June Jordan in her first book of poetry, Born Palestinian, Born Black
(1996), establishes her line of descent from the BAM, at least as one (major) influence on
her work.
Of Marvin X, Mohja had this to say in her review of his 1995 collection Love and War:
Have spent the last few days (when not mourning with friendsand family the passing of my family friend and mentorin Muslim feminism and Islamic work, Sharifa AlKhateeb,(may she dwell in Rahma), immersed in the work of MarvinX and amazed at his brilliance. This poet has beenprolific since his first book of poems, Fly to Allah, (1969), right up to his most recent Love and War Poems (1995) and Land of My Daughters,2005, not to mention his plays, which were produced(without royalties) in Black community theatres from the1960s to the present, and essay collections such as In the Crazy House Called America, 2002, and Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, 2005.
Marvin X was a prime shaper of the Black Arts Movement(1964-1970s) which is, among other things, the birthplaceof modern Muslim American literature, and it beginswith him. Well, Malik Shabazz and him. But while the Autobiography of Malcolm Xis a touchstone of Muslim American culture, Marvin Xand other Muslims in BAM were the emergence of acultural expression of Black Power and Muslim thoughtinspired by Malcolm, who was, of course, ignited by theteachings and writings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.And that, taken all together, is what I see as thestarting point of Muslim American literature. Then thereare others, immigrant Muslims and white American Muslimsand so forth, that follow.
Thereare also antecedents, such as the letters of Africansenslaved in America. Maybe there is writing by Muslims in theSpanish and Portuguese era or earlier, but that requiresarchival research of a sort I am not going to be able to do. Myinterest is contemporary literature, and by literature Iam more interested in poetry and fiction than memoir andnon-fiction, although that is a flexible thing.
I argue that it is time to call Muslim Americanliterature a field, even though many of these writingscan be and have been classified in other ways—studiedunder African American literature or to take thewritings of immigrant Muslims, studied under South Asianethnic literature or Arab American literature.
With respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just nowhearing about him—I read Malcolm when I was 12, I readAmiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and others from the BAMin college and graduate school—why is attention notgiven to his work in the same places I encountered theseother authors? Declaring Muslim American literature as afield of study is valuable because recontextualizing itwill add another layer of attention to his incrediblyrich body of work.
He deserves tobe WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americansand generally, in the world of writing and the world atlarge. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, inparticular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who isstill kickin, still true to the word!
Love and War Poemsis wrenching and powerful, combining a powerfulcritique of America ("America downsizes like a cripplewhore/won't retire/too greedy to sleep/too fat to rest")but also a critique of deadbeat dads and drug addicts(not sparing himself) and men who hate. "For the Men" isso Quranic poem it gave me chills with verses such as:
| for the men who honor wives and the men who abuse them for the men who win and the men who sin for the men who love God and the men who hate for the men who are brothers and the men who are beasts |
"O Men, listen to the wise," the poet pleads:
| there is no escape for the men of this world or the men of the next |
He is sexist as all get out, in the way that is common for menof his generation and his radicalism, but he is refreshinglyaware of that and working on it. It's just that the work isn'tdone and if that offends you to see a man in processand still using the 'b' word, look out. Speaking of theeasily offended, he warns in his introduction that "lifeis often profane and obscene, such as the presentcondition of African American people." If you want pureand holy, he says, read the Quran and the Bible, becauseMarvin is talking about "the low down dirty truth." Forall that, the poetry of Marvin X is like prayer,beauty-full of reverence and honor for Truth. "It is. itis. it is."
A poem to hisdaughter Muhammida is a sweet mix of parental love andpride and fatherly freak-out at her sexuality andindependence, ending humbly with:
| peace Mu it's on you yo world sister-girl |
Other people don't get off so easy, including a certain"black joint chief of staff ass nigguh (kill 200,000Muslims in Iraq)" in the sharply aimed poem "Free Mefrom My Freedom." (Mmm hmm, the 'n' word is all over theplace in Marvin too.) Nature poem, wedding poem, depressionpoem, wake-up call poems, it's all here. Haiti, Rwanda,the Million Man March, Betsy Ross's maid, OJ, Rabin,Mumia Abu-Jamal, and other topics make it into thisprophetically voiced collection of dissent poetry, soIslamic and so African American in its language and itsthemes, a book that will stand in its beauty long afterthe people mentioned in it pass. READ MARVIN X forRAMADAN!
According to Bob Holman of New York's Bowery Poetry Club, Marvin X is the USA’sRumi, and his nation is not “where our fathers died” but where ourdaughters live. The death of patriarchal war culture is his everydayreality.
X’s poems vibrate, whip, love in the most meta- and physical ways imaginable and un-. He’s got the humor of Pietri, thepolitics of Baraka, and the spiritual Muslim grounding that is totallynew in English –- the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom of Saadi. It’s notunusual for him to have a sequence of shortish lines followed by aculminating line that stretches a quarter page –- it is the dance ofthe dervishes, the rhythms of a Qasida.
“I am the black bird in love
I fly with love
I swoop into the ocean and pluck fish
in the name of love
oceans flow with love
let the ocean wash me with love
even the cold ocean is love
the morning swim is love
the ocean chills me with love
from the deep come fish full of love” (from the opening poem, “In the Name of Love”)
“How to Love A Thinking Woman”:
“Be revolutionary, radical, bodacious
Stay beyond the common
Have some class about yaself
…
Say things she’s never heard before
Ihdina sirata al mustaquim
(guide us on the straight path)
Make her laugh til she comes in her panties
serious jokes to get her mind off the world.”
There are anthems (“When I’ll Wave the Flag/Cuando Voy a Flamear laBandera”), rants (“JESUS AND LIQUOR STORES”), love poems (“Thursday”)and poems totally uncategorizable (“Dreamtime”). Read this one cover tocover when you’ve got the time to “Marry a Tree.”
X's latest works include The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, BlackBird Press, 2010, Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself, BlackBird Press, 2010. His Academy of Da Corner Reader's Theatre recentlyperformed The Wisdom of Plato Negro at the San Francisco TheatreFestival. His play (with Ed Bullins) Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, wasproduced in New York at the New Federal Theatre, 2008. One Day in theLife, a docudrama of addiction and recovery, is the longest runningAfrican American drama in Northern California, running from 1997 through2002.
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