culture Amiri Baraka: An Interview with Newark’s Favorite Son BY R.L. WITTER
Jemal Countess
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verett LeRoi Jones better known as Amiri Baraka—poet, playwright, painter, author— a cultural icon in America, indeed around the world, and a native son of Newark, NJ turns 75 on October 7 and a week of celebration has been planned to honor him. The Positive Community took this occasion to talk with Mr. Baraka. I stood on the porch of his three-story Newark home, waiting for an answer to the doorbell, but I was taken aback when the door opened. There was no assistant, no lackey, not even one of his children. Amiri Baraka opened the door and invited me in smiling as he shook my hand. Jemal, my photographer for the day and I were ushered into what I deemed “the sun room,” off the kitchen with two walls of windows where the sun shone through on a crisp fall day. Mr. Baraka offered to take my jacket and then motioned for me to be seated at the table. He disappeared into the kitchen and I took the opportunity to eye the hundreds of books in and on top of bookcases in the room. There were books on the table where I sat. Amiri Baraka, a man of slight stature sat down beside me and I experienced the familiar feeling of sitting at my grandfather’s feet being granted pearls of wisdom. The nervousness and trepidation I felt about interviewing this cultural icon were allayed only by the fact that my trusty digital recorder would catch the pearls as they fell from his lips.
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RLW: You’ve been all over the world and could realistically live wherever you’d like; what makes Newark home? AB: I was born here. That’s the overriding connection. I was born here. RLW: Is it really that simple? When you were studying at college or travelling in the Air force, did you always want to return to Newark? AB: At the time, home seemed the most comfortable place to go after all of that. I’d been through all kinds of turbulence in NY and it’s interesting that even the whole time I’d been in NY, I always had a big map of Newark on my wall. At the time I didn’t know what it meant, but it stayed there all the time, I just wanted it there. I saw Charlie Parker like four blocks from my house. Just as a teenager I could walk down there and walk in and see Charlie Parker play. Now you have to go to the high rent district. There was a lady across the street, Miss Miles. She was a friend of my mother—she was a fashion designer— a very sophisticated lady. In the 80s and 90s, when reporters and people with cameras would come to the house, she would come across the street and tell stories. “That was a bad boy there. He used to break up my furniture!” She would never miss an opportunity, but that is one of the legacies of being at home—you’ve got a real history. October 2009 The Positive Community
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