Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry.

Alan Spears, ed. Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. Cabin John, MD: Gut Punch P, 1993. 250 pp. $11.95.

When Fast Talk, Full Volume first arrived in the mail and I perused it, I thought, we have already fought this fight: Here were the old angers still seething and smoldering from the sixties. An accident prevented me from reading further. Now with the passage of time and healing, I have had a chance to reflect more fully on the poems included in this anthology: Here are the new fears. What is now more pertinent is that time itself has been brought more fully to bear on these poems. Time suggests that a new racism is sprouting from old roots long thought to be dead. So these poets have a fight to fast talk at full volume lest we tarry too long, sleep too much, and lose again those battles already won. Meri NanaAma Danquah informs us in her poem "Right on Time" of those earlier days when she writes, "It was a freedom thing"--and it still is.

One's first impression when reading through the pages of Fast Talk, Full Volume is that of a rerun, a sports replay alerting you to a moment you chose to miss, or forget. The angers in this anthology seethe with old pains, with the frustrations still basically unacknowledged. Still the African American citizenry is more aware; we have, in some instances, advanced in minute ways, yet we are still unable fully to jump-start the nation into committed actions. We are rapidly sliding toward the old, old days before the turn of this fading century. The best of these poets are still guards, watchmen and watchwomen, questioning: "What of the night?" We are blessed by their skill, their perceptive eyes, and their touching voices of concern and warning.

Austin F. Wooten gives us a definition of who we are and how we have struggled to name ourselves in his poem "The Nameless People" when he tells us:

Some of us have used X or triple X

for the name that we have never known.

Sometimes,

we make up names of our own.

Some of us refuse to use a name

and refer to "us" as "we."

Sakinah in her poem "Someday" gives a litany about who we will become when she writes:

Black people will be a people someday

Black people will be a people someday

Black people will be a people someday

My people will be a people someday

These incremental lines spaced effectively through this short lyric have a powerful insistence.

Wanda Coleman, perhaps the best known among this group of poets, shows us the paradox of our nature in "Akbar the Mad Poet" and "Heritage," in which the narrator states:

i was nevertheless polite and did not deny my history otherwise there

wasn't much we had in common for in me the afro-american dominated the

aboriginal to state my case until, reaching for the butter knife my hand

next to his, except for color they were the same

The sexuality of her verse and the freedom of her verve are apparent when she writes in a wildly low-down blues:

he do the belly rub

he do the jelly roll 

he a back door man with a front door ambition

he piss sweet water

There is not only myth in this poem but the ultimate sense of daring. Coleman is still our most daring poet. It is her turn to enter into the hallowed anthologies, for she has a voice to be reckoned with. Her finger is on the bare truth of our existence as Americans when she writes, in "Akbar the Mad Poet," "all Blacks are schizo. African vs American / we jes can't get along with ourselves." She is as free as any of the other poets now practicing, but she displays her fine ability to craft a form poem in the ballad "Walkin' Paper Blues." Her ear is accurate; she captures the natural speech of those who occupy her world, real or imaginary, speaking with a natural force. This poem painfully sings of the ironic fate every working man might encounter:

got a fifth o mad dog

to celebrate this day

got me a fifth o mad dog

to celebrate this day

a year of unemployment

and two weeks severance pay.

The rhyme here is simple but affecting, but Coleman's music is not the only interesting and affecting melody in this anthology.

Beyond the wide range of collected voices which filter through this volume, and beyond their collective social and political concerns, this is a gifted assembly of fresh new poets ready to sing about the low-down blues, about heritage, about craft, about music, about ancestors, about love lost and sex, which demonstrates that they are ready to become seasoned writers concerned with language and the craft of making excellent poems. Given time and inventiveness and innate curiosity, some of them will develop into first-rate singers of the next century.

Because I cannot mention everyone, let me be attentive to those poets who have left a marked impression on my heart and memory. The blues singers are first.

Kenneth Carroll has written some powerful poems, some of which seem to echo Michael Harper and his concern with history. The poignancy with which Carroll unerringly sees our human condition is one which we must continually face and answer over and over again. He writes in "White Woman Blues": "a change must come / america must have a conscience, it has none now / you will not be able to e.r.a, yourselves to safety / the roots of this weed must be pulled, examined, then destroyed / you cannot remain `white' women if you are to survive / you must be human, allied only to that which is right...." Carroll in his "Never Piss Off A Poet" calls to the mind of the reader quickly the many oral references and clever uses of colloquial language. It is filled with humor and sorrow.

Reuben Jackson is a fine lyrical poet who writes about "Country Music" as well as "Old Music," where he reminds the reader that

writing poems

about old music

is beginning

to make me feel

funny,

like maybe

i've turned

into one of

those relatives

you consciously avoid

at gatherings.

This is a poem about who remembers what and why or why it is or isn't worth knowing. This poem is unlike that of Yao Bhoke Ahoto, whose "A Man Who Sacks Congos" resonates with raw rhythm and daring fire:

they bounce between the streets

and the walls of this sanctuary,

he spinning rhythms

bouncing walls, spirits, stretching

to all parts of frames, holy spasm

the music

Community and heritage are also powerful themes touched upon by these poets. Alan Spears, the careful and thoughtful editor of this collection, painfully reminds one that "we `practice' being black, / and are not yet very good at it." This is an accurate statement that pains as we try to become more comfortable in a world which has never been quite comfortable with us.

Melvin E. Lewis's sequence of "Doors" is not only seductive but often uses some very fine imagery. Keith AntarMason's poem "On Nigga Terms" has all of the right ingredients, while Michelle Parkerson's poems are filled with praises, hallelujahs, and honor for those in our society who are not likely to receive any. She praises those who acknowledged homosexuality and stood witness in the fray when no one else would. She also offers honor and praises for black men deserving remembrance. She is a very spare poet, but one whose hands offer a sure touch and whose eyes see with penetrating accuracy.

A final word about the use of language in this volume: An overwhelming number of poets use no capitalization and indeterminant line breaks; a few juxtapose the prose line against what we normally think of as the poetic line; and sometimes these poets want us to see and hear the subtext of words within words, as cummings did early in this century. These elements are combined in ways that make us rethink what a poem is and what poetry is. Fast Talk, Full Volume lets the reader know that poetry is alive, thriving, and continually "Yearning," as Natasha Tarpley reminds us in her poem when she writes:

I am yearning for that frenzy,

for gospel,

for Aretha and Mahalia

for Chicago and Arkansas,

"Yes Lord, yes"

Give me the tambourine 

and I will play

play

play

This is an anthology for you, your children, and your children's children. The editor wisely informs us that it "has no grandiose purpose," but E. Ethelbert Miller also wisely writes in his introduction: "How you sound is still important within the African American community." There are sounds a-plenty here to make you weep, laugh aloud, tremble with a fierce sweetness, and "cure a sin-sick soul."