One Tongue: Reginald Harris

Reginald Harris, author of Ten Tongues.

Tell us about your writing process. When/how/why do you write?

To be honest I wish I HAD more of a formal process in terms of the "when, where, etc." of writing. Sadly I'm pretty much of a slacker, particularly when it comes to first drafts, and would much rather be doing almost anything else than getting that first pass at something down on the page.

I try to block out time in the evenings to work or do something even if its just sit in a chair and stare. You can imagine how successful that was during the holiday season! But I don’t get too upset about missing *a little* butt-in-chair time, because I am usually reading something that gives me ideas, or I encounter something every day that starts something flowing. I’m always writing notes to myself, things to work on later, so that when the time comes to sit down to work I’ve got all these little slips of paper to pull together and get started from.

I also tend to have a preference for leaving home and going off, usually to a college library, to work on the weekends: I pull a few ‘inspirational’ books off the shelves, sit in a carrel, and pretend to be a grad student. Those are usually the best times for me to work.

You’re writing’s been widely anthologized, Brown Sugar, Bum Rush the Page, Role Call, and Black Silk and in journals, 5 AM, African-American Review, and the James White Review. What have you published recently?

I’ve been very fortunate to have work appear in a variety of different places. Anthologies are great ways for someone starting out to get their work seen widely, and the 'lit mags' and poetry journals are pretty much the life blood of the more 'page-oriented' ('page' vs 'stage' as in slam poetry) writing.

The latest place where my work can be found is a poem in the new issue of Gargolye (#48) the huge (each issue is the size of an anthology) Washington DC-based semi-annual journal, and a story in Best Black Gay Erotica, edited by Darieck Scott for Cleis Press. The story originally appeared in an issue of POZ magazine, and I'm glad to see it find another home. Its a bouquet to friends and family I knew and loved who are no longer with us.

Share a little about your partner, Marcus.

Actually, I feel very lucky that he's put up with me for as long as he has. I'm sure I'm not the easiest person to live with...For some reason people can be very intimidated by him at first. I’m not sure why, neither is he. People think he’s "mean", when actually, he’s really a little teddy bear. Once people get to know us, they usually wind up being totally fascinated by him, and talk to him more than they do to me. Certainly he's a better conversationalist than I am!

Ten things all black same sex loving men and women should know about being in a relationship?

10! Gee, well, hmm…
1. Most people not in a relationship want to be in one, or at least think they do. They don’t realize that it’s a lot of work to deal with the same person day in and day out, and keep the relationship alive. The word 'partner' tends to be too ‘dry’ for most people when talking about who they’re with, but in some ways its accurate: it’s a job, it’s a dual commitment, it’s work.

2. I always keep remembering a line from an old Billy Joel song, “You may love them forever, you may love them forever, but you don’t have to like 'em all the time.” Want a "Perfect" relationship--get a goldfish.

3. Resign yourself to the fact that one day you will realize that you're imitating your parents, or mirroring the relationship the people who raised you had with their significant others. How could you not? People always tend to imitate what they see as children. Once you recognize this you have to decide what parts of that relationship you are mirroring do you want to keep, and what do you want to toss out.

4. You have to have a discussion about monogamy. A lot of people, and this is only going to increase with the advent of gay marriage, think to themselves "we’re together and we’re going to be monogamous," but never talk to their partners about it. This is a difficult conversation and you both have to be honest with each other and with yourself, but it has to be talked about: Are we going to be monogamous? If not, what are the ‘rules’ we’re going to follow. If we are, what do we do when people try to split us up (some people love sleeping with one or both haves of a couple), or offer themselves to both of us? I don’t think heterosexuals have this conversation (their loss) but we have to.

4a. Just because you're married doen't mean you're blind. You will still find yourself looking at other people, and other people will be looking at you. The two of you need to find ways to deal with that. (Just a personal aside here: from time to time I mention to Marcus, "Saw this guy today and thought of you...he's just your type...")

5. You’re in love, yeah well okay congratulations.... But do you LIKE the person? Can you imagine spending the entire day at home with them (and the whole time is NOT spent in bed, either)? You may be ablaze with desire now, but when those flames fade and what do you have then?

6. You may find yourself having more in common with straight married couples than with single gay people, single gay men in particular. Are you prepared to find yourself spending weekends at Target instead of in the club?

7. Recognize that a lot of the work in the relationship will be work you will do on yourself. Don’t think ‘I’ll change him,’ cause you won’t. HE won’t change, but you will.

8. It is not a bad thing to have friends from before you were together, or to make friends based on interests you don’t share with your partner. In fact, long term relationships do not equal 'social death' or shouldn't. Share things together but if you like something he can't stand, that's okay too.

9. To quote Pedro Almodovar "Talk to Her"...or Him. All the relationship books drone on and on about 'communication', and it's true. You've got to talk to each other (even if it seems sometimes that you can read each others minds)

10. Vacations. I'm a firm believer in getting away. There are probably going to be pressures in the relationship and stress, and going away to the beach or the mountains or just out of town or to a hotel for the weekend could work wonders. And a brief time away from each other occasionally may not be a bad idea either. Absence IS supposed to make the heart grow fonder....

You published your first book of poetry, Ten Tongues, Feb 2003. What is your relationship to the book now that you’ve read from it, toured with it, and lived with it for over a year now?

It is still a strange experience for me to see my name in print anywhere. And to hold an entire book in my hands with my name on it…its still a little surreal. Having said that, it is a little odd to have this book, and have people have ‘expectations’ based on this previous work for what the next thing I put out will be. It sort of sets a standard, a bar that you either have to meet, or be willing to go off into a different direction from.

Since I can be very critical of my own work, it does surprise me that after all this time I don’t dislike anything in Ten Tongues. I haven’t yet had the experience of looking at something in there and saying, “Ugh!” I may claim to be tired of reading some of the poems, in there, but I also know I'm not being entirely truthful when I say that (and, just like an actor in a long-running play, it may be 'old' to me but it's 'new' to the people hearing it for the first time) On the other hand, it’s also interesting, and a reflection on the places where I’ve read, that there are poems in there that I really haven’t read very much after all this time. You have to judge the crowd and the space and decide what will work where and with whom.

How do poems come to you?

They sneak up on me whenever the heck the feel like it. They do not have a set time or place; they just spring up, like some wild animal attacking its prey.

Usually I find myself starting with an image that speaks to me, or to the way certain words fit together with each other, or how they clash. There’s something about the movement of the words themselves that really speaks to me, that makes me want to take them for a walk, or, rather, follow them, see where they are going to take me.

Besides being a poet, you occasionally publish articles as well. Journalism appears to be a growing interest of yours. What drives you to the page?

Well, you know I think at a certain point I just got tired of saying, ‘Someone ought to write about this,” or ‘This is a really great book, someone needs to tell people about it,” and decided to do it myself. A number of writers, Toni Morrison comes immediately to mind, have said similar things: They write the books they want to read. They didn't see them on the shelves, no one else seemed to be writing them, so they decided to write them themselves.

I’m not sure if this is cynical or not, but I don’t think most people outside our community gives a damn about the lives of black gay men (sadly not even enough black gay men give a damn about the lives of black gay men) to suddenly take us up as their cause. No one is going to swing in and save us, or take an interest in our work or what we do. There are a lot of writers, artists, etc. who fall through the cracks because not many people have written about them, or discussed their work. No one is going to do this for us: We have to do it ourselves. We have to create the spaces, texts, avenues for ourselves and stop waiting for someone outside to ‘discover’ us, so we can be the next ‘flavor of the month’ or something, or the new exotic tourist attraction.

Finish the sentence. The reason I write is because….

I feel bad when I don’t. Seriously, I feel physically awful when I haven't written something in a while. So I write in order to make myself feel good, to get this urge, compulsion out of me. Because if I didn’t I think it would fester and die and I’d be a really terribly sad and unfulfilled person. And who wants that?

And now, a few strokes from Mr. Harris, a poem called "Tinder."

TINDER
by Reginald Harris

So dry the click of car doors
as I pass. The embers of vanished jobs,
older than my daughter's school
books, smolders in my hands. Scratch
of rats scurrying through trash-tossed streets
curls my nose like smoke, siren call
of dealers across every corner
chafes my skin, drive-bys for
barren turf leave only black-
rimmed silhouettes, no bystanders,
innocent or otherwise.

At that final traffic stop
the policeman's questions
beat my ears to kindling,
filled my mouth with a bloody
thirst only liquid fire could begin to quench.

Next up: The Revival: Tim'm West

Monday, January 03, 2005 @ 05:41 PM