Why Do You Write: Marvin K. White

The Man, the machine, the muscle. Author of Nothin' Ugly Fly.

Why writing matters.

Writing matters because it is the ultimate contract, one between you and the universe, one between you and “the great writings of life.” You write and you have connected with an ancient urge to record, to preserve, to teach, to pass on a story, a knowledge, a recipe, a way to get help, a way to free, a way to love, to conjure, to pray even.

Writing matters because once you decide how your story goes, how your story ends, you no longer leave it up to this world to try to squeeze the big ol’ ness of you into a footnote. You write and it matters because this world has shown that it can get you wrong, diminish you, forget you or just plain lie about you.

Writing matters because you can see it. Unlike the act of breathing the act of writing the word “breath” makes it tangible, makes it real. You can write to see things that don’t make sense to you. Write love, write death, write god, write hope, write rebirth, write despair.

The title poem of your new book, Nothin’ Ugly Fly, contains these beautiful lines: “i bird/ ifly/ nothing that fly/ is ugly/ just wing and air/ nothin’ that fly ugly/ just small/ swallowed up by sky and god.” Can you tell me how this poem came about? Give a little back story.

After leaving a relationship that showed me how much pain I would take just to feel love, I wrote this poem to remind myself who I was. I was willingly wing clipped and I wrote this poem to tell myself what happened and why it happened and I hoped for some enlightenment. I always hope that my poems teach me something about myself. As much as I writing stories about other people, current events, history, the poems that show the truth about me, I love. “Nothin’ Ugly Fly” reminds me that If I have been giving wings, it is to soar. Any thing with wings is beautiful, relies on wind and lift and gust and clear shots to heaven and god and universe. I wrote the poem to remind myself that I am beautiful or flying towards it.

I know that you were a Pomo Afro Homo. For those who don’t know, and/or were too young to remember, please give some background about the group and your tenure with the group.

The Pomo’s were a black gay performance group that told unapologetic stories about the intersections of our lives as gay/black/Americans/men and artists. The group formed in some magical moments of the early nineties where black gay men and a host of others were starved for stories that reflected their own existence. When I came into the group they had been around the world twice with two plays. I replaced one of the members (R.I.P-Rest in Pumps- Eric Gumpton) and toured for about a year with the group, performing most of Eric’s parts and some of my original writing as well. It was a wonderfully, strange, scarring and healing experience that shapes my art and organizing efforts to this day.

Is there any good reason for being a good black person?

Yes!!! Being a good black person gets you the “GBP Rewards Card.” You get discounts on gas and movie tickets and bus fare and now or laters when you present your Good Black Person Rewards Card. Oh, you even get a discount when you rent “The Players Club” from Blackbuster Video.

Being a good black person also gets you into the black seats in heaven, around god’s kitchen table.

Aren’t you a part of a modern day minstrel group, “Nickels and Dimes?” What’s that all about?

I’m not a “part” of the minstrel group “Nickels and Dimes” I am the group. Without me there would be no group. I come up with the routines, I book us at all the better joints on the chitlin’ circuit and I even write the songs. I design the costumes and I care for the pot belly pigs that we use in the act. I am the one who got us the job endorsing “Sister Mike’s Neckbone Stew.” That was me. Nickels? Me. Dimes? Me. See that sky up there… I did that. That color green? Me. Hambone? Me! Cakewalk? Me! Shuckin’ and jivin’? Me, me, me!!! I play both characters. I am the song and the dance man. I am the sand man. The candy man can. Uncle Remus? Me. Amos? Me. Andy? Me. Jay Jay? Me. Uncle Ben? Me? Chicken George? Me. We, I mean I, am not part of a modern day minstrel group. It’s only modern because that’s where I am right now. I have been all up and down and through history and each time a get run out of town, usually cause I tell some truth that that time aint ready for, I jump years, come to a new time, be a new man, a new minstrel. I am shiftless shapeshifter. A jojobo, riding the cargo train of life. I need a drink. Minstrellin’ aint easy fo’ sheezy. You try carrying round all the stories I gathered for the last million or so years and try to find a way to tell these stories. Pickles? Me. Poons? Me. Forks? Me. Spoons? Me. I am the alpha and the amigo. The crime and the punishment. I am slack jawed. I smell like a Harlem sissy. Whew, I’m tired. I am Nickels and Dimes, despite what you hear.

You also initiated/inaugurated/co-founded B/GLAM. Please tell us what B/GLAM is all about.

I am B/GLAM!!! No, wait. I am actually only a part of B/GLAM. We formed B/GLAM to present, preserve and incubate black gay creative and artistic expression. We have held writing retreats, art festivals and hosted film screenings. We are currently being re-energized by brothers in the communities where we live who are telling us that we need to do more. That they desire places to hear stories about themselves. They want to write and contribute stories by and about themselves. We are creating spaces where people can bring their very unique gifts.

Five people to whom you owe your life and why.

Mrs. Barbero, a parent of another child at my jr. high who praised me for a poem that I had written and connected my awkward mouth to bigger idea.

Bessie Lee Blow Ford, My grandmother, who like grandmothers before her expected gay grandsons to show up, hid me under her apron.

Curley Joseph White, my father, for staying out of the way, for setting the bar of what being a man was so low that it was hard for me to fail, as hard as I tried/try.

Jesus Christ, no wait, Cree Summers, cuz Freddie made sense to me and I named my favorite shirt after her. Wait, Jesus wore gauze huh?

Edward James Hampton Jr. who kept telling me who I was even when I didn’t believe him.

What can 2004 do for you? Five things.

2004 can bring me a new mixer with all kinds of attachments so that I can bake cakes for the world.

2004 can tell 2005 that I am on my way and to open doors and clear paths and remove obstacles, so that I can continue to love and grow.

2004 can help propel the poems I have written out into the world.

2004 can remind my friends that there are prayers yet answered.

2004 can quit testing me, cuz I get it.

My review of Nothin' Ugly Fly.

Reading Marvin K. White's poetry is like getting good presents on Christmas morning. Shiny wrapped gifts crowd each other under the tree but it’s what’s inside—useful, practical and endearing words that provide real surprise and satisfaction. White’s verse punches like…allow me to rephrase. White caresses memory in order to get the milky images that froth with life, embarrassingly tender images that hurt as they heal. His techniques are marvelous, indispensable, relevant, capable—just what poetry should be.

In his second book of poetry, Nothin’ Ugly Fly, White reminds us why poetry makes all the difference in spaces everything that’s ugly seems, indeed, to fly.

In the first poem “back” White unveils six powerful lines that set a cautious tone for readers:

eighteen
trying not to crook toothed smile
not to loud laugh
big lip
skinny leg
trying not to be beautiful

Love means everything to White. It spills over and bubbles up in poems like “where the boys are,” an ode to that sissy space where the author would give it all up just to be…loved. A careful craftsman, White never fails to entertain with a turn of phrase, as in “cherry” where each line pants:

innocent muscle
tight thighed legs unfurl
hot new butterfly

At the heart of everything White writes is a wrestling with love—love of others, but mainly the search for self-love. As a member of the Pomo Afro Homos, White cut his teeth on some of the most subversive and incisive material created by and about black gay men during the ‘90’s. White’s talents mainly lie in his ability to whisper heartache with an elbow to the side. Emotionally the poems in this collection dangle in the air. The author reaches up and places on paper each word, sewing each seam tight in hopes that each vignette massages the reader's heart. In the lengthy set-pieces “don’t touch that dial” and “all sons prodigal” humor tugs at the heartstrings while the author plunders self-esteem using media and color consciousness in the black community as sites for investigation.

In re: union White unfurls himself from a place of silence, and creeps in with gifts

i just wanted to look him in the eye
just look at him and stare
and play that stubborn game
whoever look away first is a faggot
see if he still wins

There are 37 poems in this taut collection. Ever generous and always a kick in the ass, readers will find shards of themselves in more than a few of these poems. White always loves us enough to show us not only his life, but also our lives as we are and how we would like to be seen. This is a shame because sometimes we do not love our poets back with as much intensity, or as much fearlessness. Much of Nothin’ Ugly Fly, particularly the title poem, is a flowering of the possibility of that very love—often withheld, but oh so sweet to the heart’s tongue.

Saturday, October 23, 2004 @ 11:06 AM