Georgia Sparling: This is why we write. A podcast of Lesley University. Every episode we bring you conversations with authors from the Lesley Community to talk about books, writing and the writing life.
This is Georgia Sparling here, producer of Why We Write and after taking a hiatus due to the coronavirus and setting up a little recording studio in my closet, we’re finally back in your ears with a Lesley Master class featuring young adult author Jason Reynolds.
Jason is the author of a number of books including Long Way Down, Look Both Ways, and he's also co-author of the current New York Times bestseller Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. We recorded the following workshop in January during our MFA in Creative Writing residency. You will hear Jason read from and discuss a variety of texts with his class. We’ve listed those readings in the show notes.
Jason Reynolds: Good morning everybody. For those of you who don't know me, first of all, my name is Jason. I primarily work with the writing for young people. The reason I always give this little spiel at the beginning of my seminars is because I come to this very differently. I don't necessarily have-- I don't owe anybody this but this is what I do, just because I think it's important that people know sort of what perspective I'm coming from. I don't have the intellectual sort of background that some of my peers do. I don't have the academic background that most of my peers do. I don't have the lexicon that they have in terms of academic concepts when it comes to literature because I didn't study it that way. I don't have a master's degree. I've never been through a program like this. I would say I'm not even that great of a teacher if I were to rate myself.
What I am, though, is someone who is extraordinarily passionate about this work. I love this-- like I love-- almost as much as I love my mama. And not just the idea of literature but the mere notion of what is possible and capable with language. That's my jam. It's all I'm really here for. And if I can figure out how to communicate that to you all in a way that makes it feel like you're taking something away that you can apply to your own work, then I've done my job. Whether or not I'm going to get all the vocabulary right, whether or not I'm going to be able to talk about syntactical error and all that, that ain't my jam. But I can tell you what's good. I can tell you that I have developed taste over the last 15 years of working in this industry. I can tell you that I'm a writer's writer and a reader's writer- both.
I can tell you that there are good storytellers and there are good writers and they are rarely the same person. And I work to be that. And I can tell you that I am unbelievably grateful to be in a space where I can try to intellectualize this thing that I'm so passionate about. I'm just trying to figure out what's possible. I just want to know what we can really do with language. And not just in the most basic, simplistic way, but like, what if we pushed ourselves, right?
I was nervous to come this morning because this is a different seminar than I'm used to teaching. Daniella asked me to teach something that was all a genre. That's really difficult to do because we use different tools. There are building blocks that are the same, but we do employ different tools when we're working. If you're a poet, it's very different than if you're working in nonfiction, or if you're working in stage and screen. Let alone if you're working in fiction for young people or nonfiction for young people or poetry for young people because it's all encapsulated in our particular genre, right? All these different things require different tools.
And so I was a little nervous, but like most things I'm nervous about, that makes me want to do it even more just to see if I can. So you're all a part of my experiment. And I hope it works out for all of us. If it doesn't, just know I tried my best, you know? And I want you all to think of your own work that way. If it don't scare you, that ain't the one. If you ain't shook about writing the thing you writing, then it's probably ain't the thing you should be writing. Run toward the thing that scares you the most. And I'm willing to bet--I bet all I've worked for that that'll be the thing that provides you the most fulfillment once you've cracked the code. Our job is to build the world they say.
And, furthermore, if when we say that, this idea that like, "I want to build a world with words," right? People say that all the time. It's one of the biggest clichés in writing. You have to build a world with words. We typically think about building a world with words as in building environment. I've got to have a character. People got to have conflict. Well it's like, "Hey, that's true." What I'm also talking about is building a thing that people exist in that they don't know they exist in. We all live on an Earth that we never acknowledge. We just live our lives. Fish don't know they're in water. We don't know we are in space. Build a world like that. Think about storytelling like that. Build a thing that exists on the sublime that people get to be in without actually acknowledging or forgetting that they're actually in the thing.
And with that being said, eventually, I will introduce this seminar. With that being said, let's talk about geology for a second. I'm sure some of you are like, "What is happening?" Those of you who know me are not as surprised. Alright, let's talk about geology since we're talking about the world, right? So, let's say this is typically the way the world works, right? This is the earth's crust. This is where we are. Walking and talking. Underneath that thin layer, and this is what they call the mantle. This is underneath the crust. I'm sure you're all invigorated by this. And then down in this area, which is underneath the crust, this is obviously, you all know as the core, right? Now, the thing about the core is, the heat and all the warmth that comes from the core actually controls the electromagnetic field. And the electromagnetic field is, which is out here and out here, the electromagnetic field is what actually continues to support and protect the ozone.
That's how this works. So you have the crust. This is us here. I'll draw a little stick figure. For the podcast, I'm drawing a terrible drawing of the layers of the earth. And so this is us, right, on the crust. Underneath the crust is the mantle. And the mantle is basically made up of like-- It's interesting. So the crust is like this super thin layer, as you all know. It's like the dermis, right, so it's super thin sort of crust that we all are walking on. It's dense in sort of mountainous areas and less dense, in obviously, where there's water, right? And underneath it is the mantle. The mantle, the actual properties of the mantle are actually kinda plastic-like. It's interesting. So it makes up most of the earth. It makes up the majority of it. It has some density to it. But the actual sort of makeup of it is plastic-like, which is really strange. And then underneath that is the core. And above us all, sort of an ether is the ozone layer, which is protecting us from all kinds of things. But the ozone layer is being protected itself by the thing that's beneath us, which is the earth's core.
If we were to think about the world that we're building, it would be this, which would be the crust, right, so this is the crust. This would be like technical sentencing, right? This is your technical skill, your technical ability. Your ability to write sentences, form phrases, use language, understand subject verb agreement, right, basic things, right? So these are your sentences. This is you as a technician up here. That's where we exist, you and I walking around. And the interesting thing about it is that those of us who are technicians and who live on the on the earth's crust, we get a little cocky. And we don't even think about all the things that are taking place beneath us. It's just what we do. It's human nature, right?
It's like, "Yo, as long as I can wield the sentences, I'm good enough, right? As long as I can form a sentence, as long as I can put the language together, then it's good enough." When really, the crust, where the sentences are, is paper thin, literally. Paper thin. It means a lot less than a lot of us think it means, even though our entire academic lives it's been drilled into our heads. You got to know how to make a sentence, right? What did they use to make us do in school? Diagram it or whatever it's called, right? Never got that right. I still don't know how to do that. You got to diagram your sentences. You've got to understand how this works and this works and why this is a fragment and this is not a fragment. This is a, what's it called, a dangling prepos-- I don't know all these-- I don’t know. All this stuff. Listen. I couldn't tell you, right?
Alright, and then underneath that, which is this little-- so that's, that’s that. Underneath that, which is this mantle part. This, this mantle thing, is actually going to be, right, your story, right? Now, the mantle, on earth, it's 84% of the earth is mantle, right? And it turns out, the way that we work, 84% of what we do is also a story. It's like the biggest bulk of what we're trying to make is the actual story. And we think of it, even though we're like look at me wording my sentences, the biggest part of the thing that we're making is the narrative. But the truth is a narrative, as just a narrative, is actually pretty plastic-like. Now, this is the part that gets a little complicated because when you really think about it, it's like, "Yo, if you tell a good story, you tell a good story, right?" That's cool, but there's another layer there that we should probably explore.
It doesn't mean that the story you told isn't necessary. As a matter of fact, it's dense and it's taking up an awful lot of space. But what it is composed of, if you leave it there, is plastic. No matter what you think about it, no matter how you're like, "Yo, this is the greatest story of all time. Oh, my God, oh my God," right? [laughter] Toni Morrison could have wrote Beloved a lot of ways but she chose. She made a decision to write that story a particular way. She could have wrote it straight ahead, right? It's the difference between what you hear in the elevator and bebop. Both of them are music, it's both music, right, with a beginning and an end and time signatures. They both have solos. They both, you know, are following all the rules, but one is very, very different. Very, very different, right? And so the way that we can think about our stories-- and I know it's painful for all of us who think that what we're making is masterful, right?
Myself included. And then we're like, "No, my story's not plastic." Take my word for it, it probably is. Most stories are, right, most stories are, which is why this is a complicated seminar because not everybody uses what I'm getting ready to try to explain. If everybody did use it, I think it would help a great deal in terms of turning stories into another thing. A different thing, right? That world that we forget that we exist in, right? So this is your story. And then down here, where the core is, this area is actually where your, what I like to call sort of like all of your, your functions, right, your devices. This is where you-- It'd be like your metaphors, but more so than just your metaphors, right? Because we think about metaphors in a very specific way, and technically, if I was giving you the true geological background about how the earth's core works, there's an outer core and there's an inner core, right? And your metaphors are your outer core, technically. Your metaphors and your figurative language and all the things. This is when you think you really getting your rocks off, right? You really like, "Yo I'm killing this," you know what I mean? You came up with a good metaphor, you like, "Nobody's thought of this." And I'm sure people have thought of it. You know what I mean? Clichés, it's an epidemic, you know what I mean? They're everywhere. And the hardest part about clichés is that no one thinks they're writing them, right? And so Everybody's like, "Yo I'm killing it. The way I called that person the this, that or the there. Oh, man, I'm turning all my--I'm turning all my nouns to verbs, because no one's ever done that before," right? It's interesting, right? We all do it. We all do it. It's a part of this process. I, myself, do it all the time.
So like let's think about even beneath sort of the outer layer, the outer core, that top layer of core. The other part of that core is what we're going to talk about today. I call it the vertical narrative because me and my buddies always try to figure out ways to explain the things that we're trying to talk about, and this is what came out. The truth is, is that it's not really indicative of what we're going to talk about because it doesn't really mean anything except for the fact that like-- I'll explain in a second.
So down here in the core is inference, suggestion. Inference and suggestion. Now this is a very different thing. It was really complicated for me to try to figure out how do you explain something so abstract in a concrete way. Because it's really difficult to do it but I'm going to give it a shot. And if we're using inference and suggestion, what the inference or suggestion will do, is it will support and protect our ozone and in your stories, which your ozone is, as the marker runs out, is your thematic arc.
For those who don't know what a thematic arc is, just because I don't want to be presumptuous. Your thematic arc is very simple. It's a very simple way to figure out what your thematic arc is. It's the equivalent of like you know how if you ask somebody like "Yo have you read something, something? Have you read, you know, Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys?" "Oh yeah, I read it. I read it." "Well, what's it about?" They say, "It's about these two boys. They locked in this youth prison, it's a reform school. One of them breaks loose, and this happens and that happens. Blah, blah." You're like, "No, that doesn't really answer the question, right? That's answering the question what is the story? What is the story about?" Those are two different things, right? We got to figure out how to make sure that we don't conflate those definitions right? “What is the story” and “what is the story about” are not the same things, right?
So your thematic arc is what is the story about, what are you trying to say? What are you trying to say? An example of this would be, for those of you who don't know. So when they were building The Cosby Show out, when they was first going through the process of trying to create The Cosby Show, the entire show was based on one particular idea and every episode was built around this one idea. The idea was, "Will Heathcliff Huxtable ever have time for a nap?" That's the whole show, is about this one thing. The whole show is about this one thing. That's what this show is about. What the show is, is a doctor, a lawyer, five kids doing the best they can in Brooklyn. Living this good life trying to offset the stereotypical ideas of what a black family is in the 1980s, early '90s. That's what the show is. But what it's about is, will this man ever have time for a nap, right?
Same thing, right? A couple of weeks ago, this thing leaked on the Internet about the creator of Roadrunner. I don't know if any of you saw this, but you can Google it. It's incredible. The creator of Roadrunner, his notes leaked, and he had this thing where he was saying how these are the tenets of the Roadrunner cartoon that have to be present at all times. And one of them, one of the big ones, was that Wile E. Coyote will never be killed. He will kill himself, unfortunately, because of frustration and his inability to control his emotions. And that is what the Roadrunner is about, right? Right? This simple cartoon, that we've all--this is what I'm talking about, like what's happening?
Like this is what I'm saying, right? And so the question is, once we figure out what the thing is about, right, what it's about, what's happening down in the core of your story, what's happening down in the part that no one can see, no one has dug their way to the earth's core, right? This is the part that we- we know it's there because of all kinds of thermodynamics, et cetera, et cetera, but no one's ever dug their way down to the core of the earth. It's somewhere down there where we can't see, and in that space, a space of invisibility, a space of sublime, whatever we're doing here has to impact and protect this thing, right?
Whatever's happening here, all of your plastic story is important, but what's happening underneath that plastic story is the very thing that's going to keep this thing intact, and this is where the magic is, right? Your thematic arc, we got to make sure you protect the thematic arc by using inference and suggestion. And the reason that you--And look of course, you can use your metaphors, you can use figurative language, all those things matter. I'm just saying that perhaps it works better if it isn't so didactic, everyone can see a metaphor coming a mile away. We don't think they can but everyone can.
Like we're living in a place where people are actually more intelligent than you think, especially the ones who are reading books, right? Everyone's like, "Okay, I get it. I can see the foreshadowing." I mean, you've done it in your workshops. Like we do it all the time. We're like, "Okay this thing happened. Really interesting. Probably going to come back in 30 pages from now. I get it." Right? Seriously, there are very few surprises left.
So what are we going to do to create implicit, implicit sort of stimuli, implicit stimuli in our stories, so that the thematic arc is protected, and you're creating something with some serious heft and enough to almost turn that mantle into more than plastic. That's--That's the point. Is everybody with me so far? We're going to go through some ideas and some ways that this sort of implicitness, this suggestion, this inference actually works. So look, how do we do this? How do we create suggestion in our stories? How do we create inference? Well, we do it like we do everything else, right?
If I were to ask you how do we create--how do you create tone in your stories, you'd say, "Oh we create tone by using language, by using environment, by using," right? We know how to do this, right? At this point, as most of you are third and fourth and graduates, I would expect you, honestly and because this is a master's program, I'm going to expect you all to understand that you know how to create tone, you know how to create these sorts of things using punctuation, using format, which is not the same as form by the way, which we should probably clarify.
I hear this all the time like, "You just got to change the form." You have to change the format. To change the form would be to take prose and turn it into poetry. We need to be clear about some of these terms. So like your format about language, word choice, punctuation, environment, character development, all these things are the same when it comes to inference, just about how you wield them, how you manipulate all these things a little bit differently. You have to have more of a deft hand when doing this, and I'll give you some examples.
And so that's basically how it works, right? The process of writing doesn't ever change, it's like, you only have what you have. You only have what you have in front of you and what you have in front of you are the things that you've created and you have to manipulate the things that you created. The only thing is they've all been architected through language. So all you truly have to build out these things is language, which is why my only passion for any of this is the passion for language. That is your only weapon, right? That is your sword, that is your shield. That is the thing that you have.
But the way you manipulate it, the way you sort of put it on the page, which you have total freedom when it comes to how you do that and all of us are really stuck in really particular ways. And I'm going to show you some interesting examples of some other ways to do it. But you have all the freedom in the world. Do not forget that this is art. Everyone treats it, especially in school, like it's science. It's not. It's not, right? At least for me, it's not, right? It doesn't have to be science, it doesn't have to be technical writing. This is a Master in Fine Arts and Creative Writing. I think we forget the creative part.
We only use creativity when it comes to coming up with ideas. And we usually don't challenge ourselves to figure out creative ways to disseminate said ideas. I know the poets are like, "Well, we do," and you're right. [laughter] The poets do, right? The poets do but for a lot of us, it's like, this is the way you tell a story. This is the way you write a novel. This is the way you write a memoir. No one pushes back. If your teachers push back on you, push back on them. It's okay. You pay for this. This is your master's degree program. It is your job to challenge it. We are in an educational system.
The beauty--One of the beauties of America is that it is one of the places where you can challenge your professor, you can challenge an expert. I've already told you I'm not an expert. So it's foolish for you to not challenge a person who's already told you that he doesn't even know most of the things but that he just does the best that he can with what he has. Seriously. And if you do that, and if you do that, what you'll find is that perhaps you'll somehow land on that which is actually you. Maybe, just maybe you'll land on you.
I've been teaching here for a long time, and semester after semester, the very first submission is always me saying, "Yo this is all cool, but I don't know who you are." People who have taken my class, who've been with me, you know that I have the same, Merlin's done it. I'm like, "This is all good, but like who are you? Where's you? Loosen up and let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. Who are you?" Right? And the only way that we can do that is if we really understand how to wield the only weapon that we have, which is language.
Now, I'm going to run through a few of the examples in here because I brought basically an example for every single genre, a professional example in every single genre. Alright, and we're going to go through and we're going to talk about inference, talk about these things that I'm mentioning, and see if we can figure this thing out. Let's see who has enough heart and courage to take a swing to figure out what makes something, where the inference is, where the quote-on-quote "vertical narrative" is in a story. First up, my buddy. Does anyone know who Eve Ewing is? Okay, poets, I'm disappointed. Eve Ewing is one of our greatest living poets at the time and probably one of the smartest people on this particular planet. The poem that I have-- I sent you a poem, I think. I think I gave you all a poem, right? It's called I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store. I'm going to read it through. I'm going to ask a couple of questions to make sure we know who Emmett Till is. I'm going to read it through again and then we're going to have some discourse. Alright.
I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store looking over the plums one by one, lifting each to his eyes and turning it slowly. A little earth, checking the smooth skin for pockmarks and rot, or signs of unkind days or people, then sliding them gently into the plastic. Whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire before realizing the danger of bruising and lifting them back out, cradling them in the crook of his elbow until something harder could take that bottom space. I knew him for his hat, one of those fine porkpie numbers they used to sell on Roosevelt Road. It had lost its feather but he had carefully folded a dollar bill and slid it between the ribbon and the felt and it stood at attention. He wore his money upright and strong. He was already to the checkout by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand, looked at me quizzically for a moment before remembering my face. He smiled. "Well, hello, young lady." "Hello." "So chilly today. Should have worn my warm coat like you." "Yes, so cool for August in Chicago." "How are things going for you?" "Oh," he sighed and put the candy on the belt. "It goes, it goes."
Does everyone know who Emmett Till is? If you don't, please don't be ashamed or embarrassed. If you need a refresher, please say so. Alright, if you don't know, you're going to-- All right, I'm going to let it rock. Just don't cheat yourself out of this. Don't cheat yourself out of an important conversation, but, okay. I'll just tell you in case you don't know. For the podcast, for the podcast. Emmett Till was a young man from Chicago who was sent down south to Mississippi to spend a summer and he was accused-- He was like, I want to say he was 14. And he was accused of whistling at a white woman, a 21-year-old white woman in a candy store.
Her husband and his friends basically, they terribly, terribly murdered this child. And it was bad. They shot him in the head. They tied a fan to his neck and threw him in the Tallahatchie River. He was fished out of the river. His mother brought him back to Chicago and made them photograph his open casket so that the world could see what had happened to her son. And this was sort of the catalyst that eventually would become the civil rights movement. Okay. Now, I'm going to read this one more time and then I'm going to ask where do you think the inference is? And I'm curious, I can't wait for this. If anybody even has a heart, looking at me crazy. I'm going to say that on the podcast. No one speaks up. They're all looking at me crazy.
I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store looking over the plums one by one, lifting each to his eyes and turning it slowly. A little earth, checking the smooth skin for pockmarks and rot, or signs of unkind days or people, then sliding them gently into the plastic. Whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire before realizing the danger of bruising and lifted them back out, cradling them in the crook of his elbow until something harder could take that bottom space. I knew him for his hat, one of those fine porkpie numbers they used to sell on Roosevelt Road. It had lost its feather but he had carefully folded a dollar bill and slid it between the ribbon and the felt and it stood at attention. He wore his money upright and strong. He was already to the checkout by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand, looked at me quizzically for a moment before remembering my face. He smiled. "Well, hello young lady." "Hello." "So chilly today. Should have worn my warm coat like you." "Yes, so cool for August in Chicago." "How are things going for you?" "Oh," he sighed and put the candy on the belt. "It goes, it goes."
All right, where do you think it is? What do you think is happening? It's not about what the poem is. It's about what the poem is about. And it's not easy, by the way, this isn't an easy-- This is grad school. It's not easy and that's okay. And there are some things in there that you have to know in order to know, but that's okay too. Just take a swing. Yup-- the normalcy of interaction in public spaces. Anybody else? Yes, there are references to bruising. What is it?
Participant 2: The plums are delicate.
Jason: The plums are delicate. Just a very simple things that she's adding into this thing. If you are- Yes?
Participant 3: Also, just the reference to-- It seems like this would be moving forward if he had actually lived. And August was when he was murdered.
Jason: There you go.
Participant 3: The candy bar,-
Jason: There you go.
Participant 3: [unintelligible 00:25:22] a candy store.
Jason: Now, we're getting there right? Think about this. This is a kid killed in a candy store in August. This is a kid whose face was mutilated, right, and bruised. Think about what she's doing here. Simple, right? Everything she's saying works for the story as it stands. And this is what I'm talking about. Nothing is didactic. Nothing's over the head. It's like plums bruise. You go to the grocery store. We're all like, "Somebody got to this one." We're all doing it, right? We all do that, right? So there's nothing that is out of the ordinary that the bruises are what we do in the grocery store. You look and you're like-- My mom, southern woman, right, plu, plu plu. She's plucking everything and doing--
A lot is happening, right? And so what does it mean that as you all mentioned, one, he was killed in August. Two, he was accused in a candy store. Three, the name of the town he lived in was Money, Mississippi, right? So she says he wore his money. Four, the most common photograph of him is 14 with a hat on, no feather. What does it mean to not have a-- Do you all know what the symbolism, by the way, like, from back in the day, the whole feather in the cap thing? It actually was about war. So a person who didn't have a feather was a person who wasn't a warrior. A person who had lost a war, right? He lost the feather in his cap, right? This is all very simple things that actually could be read straight ahead. There is no like gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. There's none of that. None of that's happening. There is no nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
You can read it straight through. I read it twice and none of it is jumping out, but it's all there. Perhaps what the poem is about is the sheer absurdity of even trying to imagine him alive because even in the imagining of this particular child alive, the ruminations of his death creep in. It is impossible, right? It's almost as if she's folding the poem onto itself saying that the issue is, I can't imagine him alive without his death just creeping into my psyche of even wanting him to be alive. It is impossible. Even in my normal everyday lexicon about a grocery store, there it is.
It's always going to be there, right? There is no imagining him living this good life because the guillotine is just beyond the lip, right? What an amazing thing. This is actually a masterful poem that reads so simply. It's the inference, right? It's what's happening down here and the truth is there is no figurative language in the poem, right? So what happens is everybody's like, "Are you talking about figurative language?" There's very little figurative language in the poem. It's straight ahead, sentence after sentence describing a scene in a grocery store. She's just describing a scene in a grocery store. There's not a lot of acrobatics happening and yet, beneath it, way beyond--
Now look, we could have read it and it would've been the mantle. By the way, mantle, when you-- Mantle means also like to cloak, right? It means like to envelop. You know what I mean? This is idea, right? And so we could have been enveloped, right? We could have read the poem and been like, "The mantle, the story itself is good enough." The truth is, it is, but man, doesn't it mean something else?
Now that we got here, we're making sense. Everybody's with me? All right. Next example. Now, these examples are going to get more and more complicated. I started with poetry because poetry is where inference exists the most, right? It's like this is how they work--How they should be working, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. That's not should, but this is an opportunity for poets, for sure. Next up, nonfiction.
Kendra Allen is a young writer, came through the Iowa program, Kentucky--From Kentucky. This book I think is a masterpiece. I wanted to pick things. One I wanted to obviously, provide us with some diverse literature, because it's what I know best. And two, I wanted it to provide also diverse formatting of things that were not-- We're not used to seeing nonfiction that looks like this. So the name of the essay is When You Learn the Alphabet. I think this is a brilliant and masterful way to write essays. She started off as a poet and so it informs her essay writing. It's very different than what we normally read. And so I'm going to read you just a couple of excerpts. This is the title piece. It's called When You Learn the Alphabet.
Answer the question. In fifth grade, when you were asked to identify your race from the test, why did you circle other? Hint, it wasn't because you didn't know you are black. Answer, you circled other because you didn't see a box labeled black and you thought maybe the people in charge forgot about your existence. Instead, you saw a box marked African-American. You didn't know what that meant, so you chose other instead. Other is safe, other can be anything, other cannot hinder you. You felt good about finally being an other.
You weren't too black or too loud on paper. Other major desirable, kind of mysterious but your mama and daddy made you black, so it's best to love yourself now. Blood will look thick when you see it melting into a concrete pavement. It looks like the stuff the vampires on True Blood drink, thick like corn syrup but as sweet because it's leaving a dead boy's body. It's normal now. It's just juice and he is overflowing into the gutter, spread out like seasons. His mother will be crying because they are making an example out of her boy. Making an example out of unfulfilled and unnecessary life.
The cops on duty will extend the public display of exploitation by saying something like, "They can't catch the crime scene like there were no witnesses." They will lie and will sound like, "We will get the person who did this." The news stations and other various forms of media will say something like, "He had a criminal record." Like, "This is a picture of him." They will mistake his peace sign as a gang sign. Like, "He should have pulled up his pants. He should have listened." And when you see the dead boy still in the street on your phone screen, they will make sure to zoom in on his big lips, just to reiterate, the target had been hit.
You think, "Ain't it funny how black people were once mocked for having big thick super cool lips and now the world praises everyone but for implanting a pair to get a fuller look and here we are, thick-lipped and still a tragedy. Ain't it funny how the lips of that dead boy is now the poster child for sexy. Church is non-negotiable. Every Sunday morning you asked why you got to go every Sunday. [laughs] That's actually an awesome sentence. You are there every Wednesday for youth meeting, Thursday for choir rehearsal and some Saturday mornings for holiday program rehearsals.
On Sundays, you might not leave. Sunday school is at 9:00 AM, morning worship starts at 10:45 AM. It's a different kind of pastor's anniversary every other week at three o'clock. Your momma says as long as you live in a house where she's paying the bills, you will go wherever she sends you. You say, there ain't that much praising the Lord in no world but you will still get dressed and purposely scratch a hole into your stockings, partly because they itch and mostly to prove a point. Church will teach you all the books of the Bible, everything will end like Revelation said and you can't wait to see how the locusts will look.
But what you'll remember most is Genesis 1:1. When God created the heavens and earth, He made woman out of man, He made flesh out of flesh. Sometimes, you scratch your skin and leave pieces of your old self under your fingernails and call it a flesh-eating disease. You will join the children's choir because you have to do something. You can't just sit there. And all the kids in the choir stand will pass Now and Laters back and forth from the same package until there's none left. The old women ushers always have red peppermints in their purses. That's what they give the kids to make them shut up. Some days you will settle for them even though you like green peppermints best. Delivery at your doorstep, a case of strawberry and chocolate milk. Your daddy, the truck driver and milkman for the moment, left it there, left you there.
And I'll stop there. So here's the thing. It's good, right? Yo come on, man. We got to stretch out. We got to stretch out, right? This is nonfiction. It's an essay. It's beautiful and it goes on and on and on. And I gave you guys a nice little chunk. I think--Did I give you guys the end? Because the end is so good. I did. Let's skip ahead. Oh, man. All right, we'll skip ahead a bit because I do-- just because I like it. I'm actually reading it because I just like to read it.
Withdrawal from people who look like you is a real thing. Your school is predominantly and systematically white. And one time you had to go over to Katy's room just to be around some familiarity. It felt kind of hypocritical because you came to this school not wanting to go to a historically black college and now you think about this decision a lot that you thought too many black people wouldn't help you grow because you spent your entire life around too many black people and now you're in a place where you barely see them. Now, you answer questions about weaves. You say they come in 12 inch, 14 inch, 16 inch, 18 inch. This is a really, really funny thing for us. Up to however many inches you want.
You answer questions asking whether or not you've personally been treated wrong by a white person. You answer questions about how much seasoning you put on your food, about your afro when you take your weave out, about lotion, about perms, about everything you wouldn't have to answer if you went to a black college. You say it's okay to ask. You just mind you are solely looked upon to represent an entire race. You mind white people can represent themselves but what they think of you specifically would be what they believe your entire race is like.
Their questions sound like “you people.” You mind you have to give the correct answer, not your answer. You mind you have to be a collective voice. You hope they shiver when you speak. X is the number of people who can embody selflessness. You do not know these people. Yesterday, you called your dad. He asks, "How are you doing?" You said you were fine. He asks, "How is school?" You said you're not going to get all A's this semester. He said, "You just have to work harder next semester." The phone gets static on the line because no one is speaking.
You ask him what is he doing. He says he's watching the game. You ask who's playing. He says the Rockets. You say they're going to lose. He says they beat the sorry Mavericks. You say barely. The phone gets static on the line because no one is speaking. He asked, "Do you want to watch the game with him?" You ask, "What channel is it on?" He says, "Channel 45." You go into your living room and turn on the TV. He asks, "Are you watching?" You say, "Yeah." The phone gets static on the line because no one is speaking. Zigzag is the pattern you have to run if a snake is chasing you. You are still running in circles.
Now, let's talk about it. This idea of code-switching. Is everyone familiar with the term code-switching? It's the idea that many people, usually people who are not of the dominant culture, which are usually not-- Basically, people who are not white. Nonwhite people are typically-- Actually, it's even complicated than that too but black and brown people specifically have learned to code-switch. The way I talk to my mother when I was younger, is very different than the way I spoke to my teachers or the way I spoke to people. We say you speak home or neighborhood and you speak job interview because those things mattered to us in terms of just protection and opportunity.
Now, remember we're talking about inference. We're talking about what's happening beneath. And remember how we build inference through character, through word, through format, through--right? All these ways.
Participant 4: There's something that’s there and it's really plain. I love the mind you have to give the correct answer, not yours. It makes it a collective voice. [unintelligible 00:37:27].
Jason: [laughs] They shivered. Did anybody else recognize the alphabet? It's all alphabetized. I actually wish that she wouldn't have-- I don't know how it came across on the copies. I wish she hadn't have bolded the-- Because she bolded the first letter. If I were doing this, I wouldn't have. Then we're talking about implicit, we're talking about inference, right? If she didn't bold-- Because she kinda was like nudging it. She gave a little hint, right? And I think she kind of bailed the reader out a little bit. Think about had she not. Because usually, when we see these kinds of things, it's like, A, yada, yada, yada. B, yada-- You get it, right? It's like, "No, she's just running through it and just starting these certain sections with these particular letters.
Participant 4: [unintelligible 00:38:10].
Jason: It probably was the publisher. You're right. You're right, it probably was the publisher. And so, and so the title of this is When You Learn the Alphabet. And so the question, I mean you guys are right here, right, so we can understand what's happening with the alphabet but there's this piece that's missing. There's something right here though, that we all talk about all the time, by the way. The alphabet, the only usage of it-- All right. Let's think about it like this. Poets, you know this as well, right? What you title the piece is a part of the piece, right? It lends to what we write. It contextualizes it or it distracts from it or it bait and switches, right? Whatever it is that you're trying to do, you use--the poets know this, you use the title.
This is called When You Learn the Alphabet. Why do people learn the alphabet? They learn the alphabet for literacy. What exactly is she talking about? Right? What exactly is this the literacy of? Right? Now think about what exactly is she learning to read? Right? What is she using the alphabet for in this case? We all use the alphabet to learn to read, learn to navigate. Right? There's financial literacy, there's literature literacy. There's sort of the idea of reading, obviously. There's emotional literacy. So the question becomes what literacy is she learning? What literacy is she--right, like--
Participant 5: [unintelligible 00:39:30].
Jason: Social literacy.
Participant 6: [unintelligible 00:39:34].
Jason: There you go. What does it mean to be black? To be woman? Right? Because it's not just about the white world because this has got all the stuff about her father. What does it mean to be black, to be woman? As you go through it, you'll see all the things. Some of the black has to do with my disagreement with Christianity or disagreement with this. Like, what does it mean to be black and woman? Right? And what is the language and the literacy that I have to know in order to navigate that space, right, which is why she ends with like zigzag and she's like, "But I'm still running in circles." Right? We're talking about something sublime. Like, I don't know if you guys feel the way I feel because I get like, this is my jam. In my mind I'm like, "This is masterful." This is incredible and you can read it straight through and you'd be like, "Yo this was a beautiful piece of prose." Right? Like, "This is beautiful." And every section has its own life, its own sort of thing happening, its own narrative, but when you really conceptualize and think about what's happening and again--and again, she uses sort of format, but she doesn't sort of like--she doesn't sort of heavy hand it with metaphor and it's not that. It's not--
It's not the same because it's not metaphor that's happening and it's not necessarily much-- Again, much figurative language. She just telling about what it means to be who she is and all of these different spaces and contexts in her life and saying, "You don't know how to speak this language and this is what I-- This is the way that I have to sort of navigate this space," or, "This is the language that I have to speak in order to survive in this space." Right? All of these different things and does it all using the American alphabetical system--a structure that we are all forced into in order to be able to survive here and in the world. This whole thing is a master-- This whole book is masterful.
The forms are all over the place as you can see. She's really just doing whatever she wants to make it work in terms of the implicit nature of the thing that she's writing, the format rather. All right, so we got nonfiction and we got poetry. Next step, my all-time favorite short story. The short story is called Girl. Jamaica Kincaid, for those who don't know, as an Antiguan writer. She actually teaches down the street at Harvard and she's one of the greatest living American writers yet. One of the greatest living American writers, black American writers and all American writers to exist. This was one of her early works and it's a masterpiece. I'm going to read the whole thing. It's very short. To all the fiction writers in the room, I also just want to say short stories can be short. Short stories can be short and actually short stories used to be short.
You go back and you read the short stories in the '60s and '70s, especially if you're reading short stories outside of white, normal--the sort of normal white literature scope. You'll see that like a lot of them were three pages, four pages, five pages, very short, short, short stories, right? And then it takes more skill for you to do that. Challenge yourself-- challenge yourself to write short stories. Okay, Girl. Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap. Wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry. Don't walk bare head in the hot sun. Cook pumpkin fritters and very hot sweet oil. Soak your little clothes right after you take them off when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it because that way it won't hold up well after a wash. Soak salt fish overnight before you cook it. Is it true that you sing bene in Sunday school?
Always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach. On Sundays, try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming. Don't sing bene in Sunday school. You mustn't speak to Wharf rat boys, not even to give directions. Don't eat fruits on the street flies will follow you. But I don't sing bene on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school.
This is how to sew on a button. This is how to make a buttonhole for the button you have just sewn on. This is how to hem a dress when you see the hemp coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming. This is how you iron your father's khaki shirts so that it doesn't have a crease. This is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease. This is how you grow okra far from the house because okra trees harbor the red ants. When you are growing dasheen make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it. This is how you sweep a corner. This is how you sweep a whole house. This is how you sweep a yard. This is how you smile to someone you don't like too much.
This is how you smile to someone you don't like at all. This is how you smile to someone you like completely. This is how you set a table for tea. This is how you set a table for dinner. This is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest. This is how you set a table for lunch. This is how you set a table for breakfast. This is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming. Be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit. Don't squat down to play marbles. You are not a boy, you know. Don't pick people's flowers, you might catch something. Don't throw stones at blackberries because it might not be a blackbird at all. This is how to make a bread pudding. This is how to make ducana. This is how-- Ducana, I always thought. This is how to make a pepper pot. This is how to make good medicine for a cold. This is how to make good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child. This is how to catch a fish. This is how to throw back a fish you don't like and that way something bad won't fall on you.
This is how to bully a man. This is how a man bullies you. This is how to love a man. And if this doesn't work, there are other ways. And if they don't work, don't feel too bad about giving up. This is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you. This is how to make ends meet. Always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh, but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread? You mean to say that after all you are, really. You're saying that after all, you are really going to be the kinda woman who the baker won't let near the bread. The end.
This thing is-- I love, love, love, love, love this, but obviously it's different. It's different. It's just called Girl. It's just called Girl. Thoughts? It's different. Again, here's the question is always the same question, right? What is the story about? About? If we're using the devices that we have, language, punctuation, format, character, voice. What is the story about? What's being inferred? What's between the lines? What is not on the page?
Participant 7: One thing that's not on the pages is who's speaking, but we infer that it's her mother.
Jason: Yes, we infer that's her mother. Why do we infer it's her mother?
Participant 7: Because we've all experienced mothers.
[laughter]
Tell us this is what you do and this is what you do and this is what you do. And this is what you don't do. Yeah, watch out, you're going to become a slut.
[laughter]
Jason: Does it matter? Does it matter that they're all semi-colons and what does that mean? That this whole thing is punctuated other than the end with semi-colons. That isn't gratuitous. It's not an arbitrary decision. She chose that. She chose that. There is a reason to me, we know how semi-colons work. They're basically almost interchangeable with commas. They there to sort of create space and take a pause, take a breath in. They introduce new ideas. That's what the semi-colons and commas are basically-- Also I can't say why we're still using semi-colons, but whatever. They work so close together. I mean, if we're really going to look at this thing just based on the grammar, based on the way that she chose punctuation, this would be a single sentence, which means that whoever she's talking to, only speaks twice.
Which means that-- Think about what's happening, right? Like if you read this thing, whoever she's talking to, we never hear-- We only hear from her when she says, "I won't speak bene, I don't sing bene on Sundays." Right? And for those of you--And this will give you a little bit of context. So she says, "I don't sing bene on Sundays or whatever." And, you know, "What if the man won't let me touch the bread?" Right?
That's all she says. Like, if you go back and read this thing, you're only hearing a single voice as she's running through, "Dah, dah, dah, dah. Don't do this. Don't do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, don't do this, don't do this." And she's like, "I heard you sing bene on Sunday," and then down later down and she's like, "I don't sing bene on Sunday, dah, dah, dah." Right? It's like, "Really?" If you were to play this out, if you were to look at this as two people talking, if it's two people, maybe Yawn is right. If it's two people talking, the other person doesn't say much in the thing. Does that change? Does that change?
Participant 8: She seemed dragged about it.
Jason: Yes, does that change? And just to let you know what bene is, bene is Caribbean--Caribbean song. It's basically the way I've always understood bene was that it was, it was really used post-slavery as a way to pass messages, but it's like songs that are sometimes inappropriate. It's like with the blues was, right? As long as there are sometimes inappropriate that are saying, but their function was to send messages without slave masters knowing. It was the way that they could communicate secretly and move things around and have voice and have autonomy. Right? Now, does that color the story? Does that change the story? Right?
Very simple things. Does it matter that we don't-- Exactly that we only hear her twice, both times. One is basically-- is in concern. The other is defending herself about think that-- I don't send messages in Sunday school. I don't communicate in Sunday school. That's not what's happening with me. That's wrong. It's a lie. Right? Does it matter? Like I mean, if you really go through and look at this thing and what she's really saying--and there are these moments as you were saying-- It's doing like this. It isn't all bad. It isn't all bad. Right? You know, it's a lot of like, this is how you appease people, but there's also this moment, it was like, "This is how you spit up in the air if you feel like it." When she gets toward the end, it's like, "And this is how you spit up in the air if you feel like it, if you want to do that, and this is how you step out of the way so it don't come down on you, right? This interesting moment of like--
Participant 9: The girl's supposed to be five?
Jason: And so I wonder--and look--And this is me sort of-- I've been working this piece out for 10 years. I love reading this thing probably three times a week because I just think it's something--it's interesting. But the inference to me is not about the girl per se, right? The girl is definitely like-- there is this-- Look, I grew up, I grew up in a house like this. I grew up in a house where like, my mom has had experiences and because of my mom's experiences, her love--This is about love, right? It just doesn't look like-- this is about love after brokenness. Alright? And it doesn't always look like the love that so many of us expect to see. But there are these flashes where she's like, "Yo, but you know, you want to spit up in the air if you feel like spitting." Remember she's talking to a girl, a girl she said, "You can't pick up no marbles. Don't squat down to pick up marbles you ain't no boy." Has nothing to do with the fact that she can't pick them up. It's about she can't squat, right? Don't, don't--Then she say, but, "If you want to spit up in the air, if you feel like spitting up in the air, I'm just going to teach you how to move out the way. Right? It's a fascinating thing, but we don't hear much from the girl which means that even though the mother is loving on this girl, the girl is still oppressed, right? And this is sort of, like, it's about that--it's about pattern making. Even the way it's written. It's about patterning. Right? What an amazing thing.
This is how I'm going to basically build you into the pattern that I am because this pattern is the only thing that I know. And this is it. This is the only way I know how to love you. And so I have to teach you this pattern. This is how you've got to iron your father's khaki shirt, you got to iron your father's khaki pants. This is how you do it. This is how you entertain guests, how you entertain this, because it's not about you really, this is how I have had to do it. It's about me. This is how I have had to do it. And I'm sorry because I just need you to shut up and listen the way I had to shut up and listen my entire life. This is-- it's pattern making. It's written for pattern making-- like genius. Genius. Inference, right? The inference is in the patterns, the inference is in the music of it all, the inference is in the repetition of it all, the inference-- because what she's saying is, "This--like, this is how it works."
"This is how it works. But look, spit in the air sometimes." And then she comes back and says, "Are you really going to be the kind of girl that they won’t even let touch the bread?" It's like "Mom, you just told me to spit in the air," right? This constant tug of war with that which is free, and that which is real, right? Brilliant. One single sentence.
Participant 10: Spitting in the air also creates space for freedom, but it's like there are these- They're like generational, like reaching all the way back. This is how it's been done.
Jason: This is how it's been done. Ain't going to be no storytelling. You don't get to tell. Don't sing bene in Sunday school? You don't get to communicate. It's very similar to what Kendra was doing, right? You don't get to communicate on your own in this space. Don't do that and it's was like, "Mom I will never.' And she says, "I never sing bene, especially on Sundays." I never communicate and pass these messages. I never try to get over. I never try to get free, which is what bene was used for. I never do that. Especially not on Sundays.
Stage and screen time. So here's the thing. This was tough for me, not because it doesn't exist in stage and screen, but that the way--it's that we don't really think of stage and screen on the paper, on the page. We think of it on the stage or on the screen, hence why it's called stage and screen, right? And I gave you guys really sparse excerpts. They're all over the place and then we're going to make no sense. And so what I would encourage you all to do, first of all, has anyone read the play or seen the play or seen the film? I know Yes. I reckon, look at them they're like, "Yes, us." I know, I know.
[laughter]
I know you've seen it. Is that right? Here's the reason that they're so emphatic is because this is like the Bible in the black community, like we love this thing. This is one of these plays it's like a big deal. This is like, you know, the black man Hamlet right here. This is a big, big, big, big deal for us for various reasons which I may not have time to get into, but, if you haven't seen the play, the whole thing is on YouTube. It's probably still playing in New York. If you live in New York and got a couple of hundred bucks go check it out. And they have a movie with Denzel Washington which is the--which is the play basically on screen. They changed nothing. Absolutely, which may have been a problem, but they changed [laughs]. They changed absolutely nothing. So you can also watch the movie with Denzel Washington about Davis.
It is the exact--the exact script. When you read it-- but what I found when I was preparing this seminar was that to read the play actually helped to illuminate these very things I'm talking about. The core, right? Some of that--some of that-- the inferred things, the inferences, sort of plot of the play if you haven't seen it or read it is this is Pittsburgh and there's a man named Troy Maxson. He's a blue-collar guy. Yes, he's a blue-collar guy, it’s like blue-collar town stuff, right, and he is a failed baseball player who also has done some prison time and has now decided that the best way to build his life is to work a job and do his thing. He's fine in terms of just like, I go to work every day, I earn my keep, I come home, I give my money to my wife because of the time period that this is in, right? I give all my money to my wife. My wife takes care of everything. I have-- He has a son, who is a musician, and he has a younger son-- from a previous marriage, from a previous relationship-- and he has a younger son who was living with him who wants to grow up to be a football player.
And basically, this is a man who is-- whose being eaten from the inside out. Because he has never been able to- It's hard because I'm trying not to give too much away so we can do some of the unpacking here. Just know that this is a man being eaten from the inside out because of his experiences. So I'll read a little bit. All right, right from the beginning, Act one scene one. I actually just chose like--I just chose act one to study because there's so much that happens in the first act of this play. Like everything is in the first act of the play. So act one, scene one. It's 1957. Troy and Bono enter the yard engaged in conversation. Troy is 53 years old, a large man with thick heavy hands. You should see the James Earl Jones version of this play by the way. It is amazing because he is the real Troy Maxson apparently.
It is the largeness that he strives to fill out and make an accommodation with. Together with his blackness, his largeness informs his sensibilities and the choices he has made in his life. Of the two men, Bono is obviously the follower. His commitment to their friendship of 30 odd years is rooted in his admiration of Troy's honesty, capacity for hard work, and his strength, which Bono seeks to emulate. It is Friday night, payday and the one night of the week the two men engage in a ritual of talk and drink. Troy is usually the most talkative, and at times he can be crude and almost vulgar, though he is capable of rising to profound heights of expression. The men carry lunch buckets and wear--and wear or carry burlap aprons and are dressed in clothes suitable to their jobs as garbage collectors. They're garbage collectors, that's right because he wants to be a driver of the truck, that's right.
All right, Bono: "Troy you ought to stop that lying." Troy: "I ain't lying, the nigga had a watermelon this big." He indicates with his hands. 'Talking about what watermelon Mr. Ran? I like to fell out, what watermelon Mr. Ran, and it's sitting there big as life." Bono: "What did Mr. Ran say?" "He said nothing. Figured the nigga too dumb to know he carrying a watermelon. He wasn't going to get much sense out of him trying to hide that great big old watermelon under his coat, afraid to let the white man see him carrying it home." Bono: "I'm like you, I ain't got time for them kind of people. Now what did he look like getting mad because you see the man from the union talking to Mr. Ran. He come to me talking about Maxson going to get us fired. I told him get away from me with that, he walked away from me calling you a troublemaker. What did Mr. Ran say? He said nothing. He told me go down to the commissioner's office next Friday. They called me down there to see him. Well, as long as you got your complaint file, they can't fire you. "
That's what one of them white fellows tell me. I ain't worried about them firing me. They are going to fire me because I asked a question? That's all I did. I went to Mr. Ran and asked him, "Why? Why you got the white man's driving and the color lifting? Told him, what's the matter, don't I count? You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck? That ain't no paper job. Hell, anybody can drive a truck. How come you got all the whites driving and the color lifting?" He told me, "Take it to the union." Well, hell that's what I done. Now they want to come up with this pack of lies. I told Brownie if the man come in to ask him any questions, just tell the truth. It ain't nothing but something they don't trumped up on you because you filed a complaint on him.
Brownie don't understand nothing. All I want them to do is change the job description, give everybody a chance to drive the truck. Brownie can't see that, he ain't got that much sense. How do you figure if maybe you making out with that guy be up his tail all the time, that Alberta guy? Same as you and me, getting just as much as we is. Which is to say nothing. It is, huh? I figure you are doing a little better than me. And I ain't saying what I'm doing, aw nigga look here, I know you, if you had got anywhere near that guy, 20 minutes later you'd be looking to tell somebody. And the first one you're going to tell, that you going to want to brag to is going be me.
I can go on, I want to skip ahead though. So you get--you set the scene there. They just trying to figure out how to get ahead, how to get better opportunities on the job. And of course, they're talking ridiculous. And then act one, scene two. So I'm going to give you this little snippets of everything that's happening in act one. Act one, scene two starts off. Rose is Troy's wife. The lights come up on Rose hanging up clothes. She hums and sings softly to herself. It is--excuse me--it is the following morning. She sings Jes—do you all know this song? Somebody yelling. There's some old--there's some old southern spiritual hymn, to say. This is what you find in your hymnal, you know what I mean? “Jesus be a fence all around me every day.” I'm not going to sing it to you because I wouldn't want to--for the podcase--I wouldn't want to ruin it for the podcast. "Jesus be a fence all around me every day. Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way. Jesus be a fence all around me every day." Troy enters from the house, Rose continues. "Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way."
"Morning are you ready for breakfast? I can fix it soon as I finish hanging up these clothes." "I got the coffee on. That'd be all right. I'll just drink some of that this morning." Now, I really only put that in there for that one part. Like I say, it's hard to do this with a play because you can't-- because you'd have to read the whole play in order for me to make this all make sense so I'm just trying to give you guys little hints for us to unpack. So you'll see on the next part I gave you guys, it's Troy and his wife and they're talking to Gabriel. Gabriel is Troy's brother and Gabriel is-- has neural differences after the war. Gabriel was in the war, came back, and he has a metal plate in his head after being shot. And so he is what seems to be, some form of schizophrenia. He thinks he's an angel. He thinks he's dead and that he's come back to Earth to sort of do this-- do a job, right? Troy says, "Well that's good Gabe. You got your own key now." Because Gabe just got his own apartment down the street from them. "You hungry Gabe? I was just fixing to cook Troy his breakfast." And Gabriel says, "I'll take some biscuits. You got some biscuits? Did you know when I was in heaven every morning me and St. Peter would sit down by the gate and eat some big fat biscuits. Oh yeah, we had us a good time. We'd sit there and eat us them biscuits and then St. Peter would go off to sleep and tell me to wake him up when it's time to open the Gates for the judgment."
Rose: "Well come on, I'll make a batch of biscuits." Rose exits the house. Gabriel says, "Troy, St. Peter got your name in the book. I've seen it. It says, Troy Maxson" I say, "I know him. He got the same name like what I got. That's my brother". Troy: "How many times you going to tell me that Gabe? Ain't got my name in the book, don't have to have my name. I didn't die then went to heaven. He got your name though?" "One morning St Peter was looking at his book, marking it up for the judgment and he let me see your name. Got it in there under M got Rose's name. I ain't seen it like, like I have seen yours, but I know it’s in there. He got a great big book. Got everybody's name. What was ever been born?"
"That's what he told me. But I have seen your name. Seen it with my own eyes." “Go on in the house there, Rose is going to fix you something to eat.” "Oh, I ain’t hungry. I don't have breakfast with aunt Jemima. She comes in, cook me a whole mess of flapjacks remember how--" There and so it goes on.
All right, it's a beautiful scene. And then I read a few more passages and we're opening it up just to give you guys a taste. So he's talking--They keep talking and basically they're talking about the metal plate in his head. And Rose says, "Well, at least he be eating right? They can't help him take care of himself." The people at his new apartment. "Don't nobody want to be locked up, Rose, what'd you want to lock them up for? Man, go over there and fight the war. Messing around with them japs. Get half his head blown off and they give him a lousy $3,000 and I had to swoop down on that. Is you fixing to go into that again? That's the only way I got a roof over my head because of that metal plate." He used that money. He used his brother's money to buy a house. You know the money that he got, his GI check and all that stuff. That's crazy. “Ain't no sense of you blaming yourself for nothing. Gabe wasn't in no condition to manage that money.
You done what was right by him? Can't nobody say you ain't done what was right by him? Look how long you took care of him until he wanted to have his own place and moved over there to Miss Pearl.” "That ain't what I'm saying, woman. I'm just stating the facts. If my brother didn't have that metal plate in his head, I wouldn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I'm 53 years old and I see if you can understand that." And we'll stop there. We'll stop there and later Rose goes in about. The other part of the plot is they live in this house and they had this house. And Rose is like, "Look, you got to build this fence. Our house needs a fence. We live in this neighborhood, we got a yard--we got a backyard and all this, put us a fence on this yard, like fence in our space." And so much of this story is basically Rose being like, "When are you going finish the fence?" Right?
And Troy being like, "I'm going to get right to it." Rose, "I'm going to get right. Let me get my son, Corey, come out here. Help me and your mother make this fence?" It’s this whole thing about like building this fence. And then things happen and I don't want to spoil it. Please go and see it. Read it, watch it. Whatever you want to do. It's a brilliant play. And it's arguably the greatest black playwright to ever live. August Wilson. Incredible. Now. All right, this is going to be a little more complicated so I'll walk us through some of it because that's not much for you to go walk because I only gave you snippets, but I'd love to hear what you think just based on what you heard. Based on what I've just told you, based on the parts that I chose to give you, what you think this story is about? It might even be helpful.
Participant 12: Protection.
Jason: Protection. That's interesting. That's one way to look at it.
Participant 13: Boundaries.
Jason: Boundaries. That's interesting. So protection, boundaries.
Participant 13: At the beginning there's this like boundary that he's trying to check out between the white drivers, the black picker or I guess they're like walking by the garbage truck. So-- And then it's interesting-- the part where his wife is trying to make him build a fence. There are boundaries that some of the characters want to make, especially with the song about Jesus. Like, please be a fence around me. So maybe like some fences could be protection for the girl[unintelligible 01:06:03]
Jason: There you go. That's it. That's the answer. That is, sort of, the crux of it. Like what is the story about? It's about the double edge of the fence, right? It's about--it's about the thin line between freedom and oppression. Right? It's thin, it's thin, it's thin when it comes to our families, it's thin when it comes to our society, it's thin when it comes to our religions, it's thin when it comes to education, it's thin when it comes to everything, right? A super-thin line that fence is a super thin line between that which is free and protected. Right? And that which is--you know-- there's protection and there's a prison in that. Then the line is very thin.
What happens to people, depending upon what side of the line you fall on, is implosion, right? And what you see is Troy Maxson continues to-- he basically devolves as it goes on. Because, because everything that happened in his life before-- and he gets into it all and I want you all to read it so I can't give it away. He gets into what happened to him and how he was mistreated by white folks and how he has all these scars and so everything in him wants to be protective and everything in him wants to run. Right? And that is sort of what the story is about. All right? And then lastly, why age and middle grade and picture books and children's literature. Here's the thing, and I'm embarrassed to say it, but I don't know nobody literature look like I love my own or I know my own. I chose my own story, which is a big faux pas, but in the essence of making sure that I got it right, we're going to do--we're going to do one of my short stories.
So the basic premise is there are these kids who are walking home from the pool on a hot summer day, three black boys, and--or four-- I can't remember now. And they are starving because the pool makes you hungry. And as they walk home, they're just thinking about in Brooklyn there's bodegas on every corner and you can get a sandwich on every corner and you can just go in and get a sandwich. And they're thinking about--because they're starving-- they're thinking about what kind of sandwich they would make. That's all, that's a whole story. It's just about what kind of sandwich. If I could make any sandwich, what kind of sandwich I would make. I'll start where--I'll jump ahead a bit. It says, just like that, they see a Boar's Head--They see a Boar's Head advertisement. You know how Boar's Head advertisements look way better than a sandwich, right? It's like perfect with the tomatoes and super red and the green lettuce--you know, it's like, "Whose sandwich is this?" Especially if you're getting it from where we get it in Brooklyn. I'm like, "Ain't nobody's sandwich looks like this, bro." They see it and he's like, "I want a sandwich." Football or ham or chicken or Turkey over and over again. Just like that. Jamaal slaps his Palm to the glass of the bodega, presses his fingers against the sandwich ad “yum yum.” "I mean that looks good and all," big boy says, "but I was thinking something maybe you know the beef you get with beef, broccoli from the Chinese spot. Randy, Flaco, and Jamaal look at big boy, like he still has a used bandaid stuck to his head because of the pool. It was a bandaid.
It's a whole thing. "Just hear me out," Big Boy continues, "You take some of that beef and you put that on some bread and you put the broccoli on it too, right? Then you put the lettuce, tomato and all that on it. But what really make it fire is when you put that hot mustard and the duck sauce and just a little bit of soy sauce on that thing. No Mayo or mustard-- man. Oh and you crunch up the dry wonton noodles on it too, like how we sometimes do with the chips, man, that's a sandwich." "It's good to know that nasty bandaid didn't affect your brain yet because that sandwich actually sounds mad tasty like with the tang of them sauce is mixing with that beef, yes." Flacko nods, "Exactly," Big Boy responds the nod with a deeper, slower nod, "Or maybe even like, like some pastrami or something like that." Jamaal, inspired by the beef and broccoli sandwich, revises his original idea, “And you just stack it up like a fist full of it and instead of putting it on a hero or on slices or even on a regular roll, you put it on a hallah roll.” "A what?" Big Boy asked. "A hallah roll, it's like Jewish bread. It looks just like the back of your head, Big Boy" Jamaal jokes "Shut up," Big Boy rolls his eyes until one--until only the white show. "Anyway, they sell it over there on Bedford. Kid, I go to school with let me taste it one time when I was hooked; delicious you put that pastrami on there, and then you add some Swiss cheese, and some coleslaw, a splash of hot sauce for a little heat, and a few corn chips for crunch, and boom. You got your own little piece of heaven."
Jamaal slows his walk as they approach the next corner, when it hits him, "A hallah heaven, sounds like it--" Randy agrees not realizing that everyone else is easing to a stop. Randy steps out into the street. A car zooms by and almost clips him. He jumps back just in time. "Yo,” Flaco calls out, “Whoa," Jamaal yelps out. "What that hell was wrong with you, Randy?" Big boy says, now yanking Randy by the arm with delayed reaction, "Snap out of it." "My bad. I'm just so hungry, I ain't even see that car coming" "Do we need Flaco to hold your hand bro?"
Let's skip ahead a little bit. They're talking about pumpernickel now. So he's like "Yes we got making a sandwich on that bread" then "What's the name of it? It got a funny name" is like "Oh it's called pumpernickel" again from Jamaal. "Pumpernickel" they all shout together they laugh.
"Yes, you put all them veggies on that bread" because they're basically saying they going to make a vegetarian sandwich that they see white people do in the neighborhood, right? They be like "yo, white be vegetarian sandwiches, right? like salad on bread." They like "You going to get some pumpernickel" they're like "You can put all them veggies on that bread, pumpernickel" Flaco just has to say it again. "And to top it all off, the Michael Jordan of all meats- bacon." "Bacon?" This time, only Big Boy. The rest of the boys nod in agreement. They're coming up Hancock Street, which means they're approaching Flaco's house which sits right on the corner. Well, not right in the corner because the bodega is right on the corner, but next to the bodega is Flaco's house. Behind them a disappearing trail of water, the drops becoming less frequent with each travelled block, each passed deli.
Finally, Randy says, “Right.” Jamaal cosigns as they climb the front steps. Flaco jams his key into the lock, opens the building door and the boys, now almost completely dry, take the steps two at a time, before barreling into Flaco's apartment "Mom" Flaco yells kicking his shoes off at the door, no answer. He checks the bedroom and repeats "Ma" nothing.
Jamaal, Big Boy, and Randy remove their shoes as well, and then flop down on the couch in the living room, right in front of the air conditioner. And when Flaco reappears he's holding a bottle of lotion, this is also tradition; the chlorine dries their skin out, scales it and covers it in a layer of uncomfortable white. The boys smear it over their arms and faces, in between their fingers and in the corners of their mouths.
They rub it on their kneecaps and up and down their ashy legs, the dry is fading like static coming into a clear picture "So we eating?" Big Boy ask, rubbing his hands together. "Oh we definitely eating," Flaco says heading into the kitchen. "Pumpernickel" Jamaal murmurs under his breath, a grin on his face. "What'd you say you wanted, pastrami right?" Randy asks Jamaal, his voice punctured by clanging in the kitchen.
"Hell yeah," Jamaal replies "Even though I can't front that beef from broccoli sandwich sounded like a winner." The sound of cabinets opening and closing. "I was all forward until Randy started running off about the Polish sausage with the sauerkraut and the jerk sauce" Big Boy confesses. The sound of the refrigerator door unsticking, re-sticking, and when Flaco returns from the kitchen, with four bowls, a box of cereal, and a half-gallon of milk. "Don't worry" he says, "I got sugar."
All right. And really quickly, what do you think the inferences are? I kind of have to tell you, I'm sorry--because I'm running-- I'm so sorry. But the basic inference in the story is that, if I were to ask what is the story about-- the story is about imagination without resource. It's about--it's about resilience. It's this idea that these boys have imagined a world that they do not live in, and when they get home there's nothing there but cereal and "It's okay because I got sugar. We are going to make it sweet regardless; we're going to make it taste good, regardless"
This is a story about resilience and about imagination without resource. They had the imagination of a million geniuses, they just don't have the resources to make that thing happen, but "It's okay we're going to figure it out; we're going to eat regardless," right? And the other thing it's about-- The other slight inference is, if you read the whole story which I encourage you all to, is that every sandwich they choose to build represents a self-sustained community. Right? And in New York and in every major city in America, including this one, everybody, for the most part, has self-sustained communities except for black people. The black dollar stays in the black neighborhood 30 minutes, it used to pass hands 40 times. Right? Everybody is able to sort of build their own economies, Jewish Communities, Chinese Communities--and it's a wonderful thing by the way; Jewish communities, Chinese communities, Polish communities, Russian communities, Italian communities are able to sort of manage their space.
There's nothing wrong with this, this is a good thing, right, they're able to manage their communities in a way and keep the economics of said community in the space in which those dollars are earned. The black community, unfortunately with the infrastructure, isn't quite the same anymore because of the history of America, right? And so there's this moment when they get home, they rub the lotion on. Right? They return in this idea. That static coming back to clear picture, meaning here we are coming back to our realities, this thing that we are doing, coming back to life, and in our lives, in this reality, though we have all the brilliant ideas, unfortunately, we're going to have to settle for this sugar, but it won't feel like settling. We'll make it a feast.
And that is what this story is about. But when you read it straight through, it's just a really funny story about some kids walking home from school. Nothing heavy-handed, it's all just underneath. It's--it's way down here, at the core. Right? Way down here at the core. And that is the magic of language and the magic of story. All right, I hope this was helpful. Please try to use some of this in your work, I promise you it will add something there.
Even if you--even if they don't quite know it's there, they'll know it's there. They will sense it's there, right? And now that I've explained some of this stuff, when you go back and read these pieces I've given you, it'll all feel very different. Very different. And that is the point. Thank you all for coming to this, I hope you had a good time.
Georgia: Thank you for listening to Why We Write. To hear more from Jason Reynolds, who is a faculty member in our MFA in Creative Writing program, check out our episode page where we have links to an interview with Jason from season one as well as lots of other information. We hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there, and we will be back in two weeks with another episode.
