Black Rose

After work on Tuesday morning I went home for a few hours, took a siesta for an hour and a half and then headed for class. I didn’t have to use my bike flashers all the way downtown and I could still see pink on the horizon as I was locking my bike in front of University College at 17:30.

I used my laptop to finish my journal entry for the previous day, and then I ate five cheese sticks and continued making hand written notes for my essay. When Zack arrived, remembering him mentioning that he’d visited Turkey, I asked if he’d ever come across an area called “Halfeti’ but he hadn’t. I wondered if he’d learned any Kurdish. He explained that he’d hardly talked to anyone when he was there because it was Ramadan and he didn’t want to piss anybody off. George arrived as Zack as I told Zack that I’d seen a YouTube video of a guy getting punched out by someone for smoking a cigarette during Ramadan. George suggested jokingly that it must have been the brand. Zack joined in that one wouldn’t want to be caught smoking Marlboros in Camel country.

George called out to everyone, “Welcome to Valentines Day!” and then commented that spring was just around the corner. He recounted for us how on the Thursday before he had participated in two literary events: one on ethics and Leonard Cohen and another a celebration of the life of the late Austin Clarke. He noted that it turns out coincidentally that both Cohen and Clarke were born in 1934.

George gave us his itinerary for the next little while: that he would be flying to various engagements in different parts of Nova Scotia and back and forth to Ottawa for other events, including an Ottawa poetry slam. I asked if he would be a contestant or a judge and the slam and he said that of course he would be a judge since he wouldn’t dare to compete with slam poets because they are just too good.

Our book of study for this class was Wayde Compton’s “Performance Bond”. Compton’s approach to writing poetry is intellectual and encyclopedic, with a focus on the ABCs of ABCs. That is the documentation of the realities, the history and identity of Afro British Columbians. He is currently a professor of creative writing at Simon Fraser University. His first book of poetry was called “49^th Parallel Song”. In “Performance Bond”, in addition to his own work, Compton adds other people’s texts about their histories as Afro British Columbians because they help to justify his on presence. In addition to being a teacher and a writer, Compton is also a club DJ. The book blends his poetry in print with an added CD so we can hear him performing some of the material.

The title of “Performance Bond” comes from the judicial phrase “Appearance Bond” that someone signs to prove that they are responsible enough not to have to remain in police custody by promising to pay a certain amount of money if they do not show up in court. It is deliberate that the word “bond” has various other meanings such as to be shackled, one’s word being one’s bond and high quality writing or printing paper. Everything in the book has double and triple meanings. A case in point was “Stations”, the first poem from the book that we looked at. Stations can refer to Stations of the Cross and there are different ways of using the word “cross”. Compton himself is a cross breed but “cross” may also refer to crossing over. Stations could also refer to stations on the Underground Railroad.

George told us that Compton’s birth mother was White and his birth father was Black, but they put him up for adoption. However, the couple that adopted and raised him were of the exact same racial mix as his birth parents. So his two sets of parents mirrored one another. The mirror appears a lot in Compton’s poetry, indicating likenesses, representation and appearance. The word “surface” is also repeated a lot in this book.

George took a moment to announce that he has recently become a proud landowner in Nova Scotia. He told us that he needs peasants to work his three-quarters of an acre lot and so he would consider applications first from his students.

Compton is very hip, avant-garde, political and interested in exploring and experimenting with racial codings and the melding of language with objects, sounds, music and places.

“Performance Bond” is dedicated to Rosemary Brown and Ted Joans, both of whom died in 2003. Brown was a British Columbin community activist, the first Black woman to be elected to a Canadian provincial legislature and the first woman to ever run for leadership of the NDP. Joans was a Beat writer, jazz poet and surrealist whose work was a precursor to the spoken word movement, though he did not like the competitive aspect of slam poetry.

George announced that on March 9 he would be recording a song in Ottawa. Knowing that he has declared emphatically in the past that he can’t sing, I asked him if he would be singing. He laughed dismissively and affirmed that he would be reading.

Some of Compton’s poems look at borders and so George talked a bit about the fact that Canada is more edgy about borders in many ways than the United States. We have a very selective immigration policy. We targeted Chinese immigrants because we wanted them to build our railroad; we let in Eastern Europeans in the early 20^th Century because it was determined that they would be a good fit to contribute to our agricultural production in the prairies; and now we have special categories for immigrants who can start businessesbecause we are elitists.

Canada has had anti Jewish, anti Asian and anti Black laws. British Columbia passed laws to impede Asians from voting in 1872 because some communities had a Chinese majority. Between 1999 and 2001 a group of Chinese were trying to reach the west coast in leaky boats. The Canadian Navy was sent to intercept them. Out of a few hundred, only a handful of children got to stay. In 1987 South Asians came ashore. Again the navy was called and Parliament was even recalled.

“Declaration of the Halfrican Nation” was first published in 1996.

Somehow the subject of wormwood and absinthe came up. I missed the thread that led to it. George pointed out that it's dangerous but widely available in Quebec.

In the recent refugee crisis, Canada has accepted 56,000 last year while United States has only let in 5,000 even though it’s partially the fault of the United States that the crisis occurred in the first place. It’s an inconvenient truth.

The poem begins with the word “hazel” written as if it were a person’s name but with a small “h”. It refers to the colour. In between as an identity. Passing for Black or White. The line “What is Britannia to me?” is a reference to the line “What is Africa to me?” from “Heritage Poem” by Countee Cullen.

What does it mean to be a “British” Columbian? We forget that the Canadian constitution of 1867 says that we have to advance the interests of the British Empire.

There is a reference to Frantz Fanon’s ghost. Fanon wrote “Black Skin, White Masks” about how Blacks have to behave as if they are White in order to function is the White world.

Of how to make hazel definitive, George suggests that all mixed race people should be included as Metis, since Metis means “mixed”.

I pointed out that in several places in the poem Compton forces the reader to experience halfness by splitting up words at the end of a line so they have to be finished on the next. I also indicated that he peppers the piece with words that mean “half” in various contexts such as: semi; co; side and entre. Then I shared the results of some research that I’d done on the black rose, through which I found that the blackest rose in the world is in a place in Turkey called “Halfeti”, the name of which was originally in Kurdish, “Xelfeti” and which was made from a combination of the names of two lovers: “Xel” and “Feti”. Their legend seems to be an ancient Romeo and Juliette story about a couple that because their families could only be united in death.

We looked at a poem that begins with the line, “Lyrical / Prosaic”. The first half consists of various similar opposite sets of words, then changes to a list of words and mean “mixed” and ends with the line, “Those who have no history are doomed”.

Another poem begins with the line, “Chinese Columbia” then each subsequent line lists a different ethnic group that lives on the west coast and puts “Columbia” after each one. At the end of the list is “British Columbia /  whose motto /  Splendor Sine Occasu … can be translated myriad ways …” The translation is basically “Shining without a sunset.” But Compton gives his own at the end as, “Scintillation without perimeter”.

George said that there have been no treaties between Natives and the British Columbia government until recently. My research shows that the first one was in 1850, but maybe he means a fair one where the details weren’t written in later.

We looked at the poem “Afro-Saxon”. George explained that elite Blacks identified themselves with that term.

Compton is mixing elements of popular culture as a means of interrogating commentaries on authenticity just like he mixes beats as a DJ.

His poem, “Jinx” has words or lines intermixed with non-letter symbols. It contains a joke about the Rosetta stone and the genetic code. There is no genetic code.

George announced that we would be taking a break, but first we would look at “Christian’s favourite poem from the book, ‘To Poitier’” I’d thought that he was going to ask me to read it but he read it himself. In fact, except for the first poem, George read all of the ones that we looked at in this book, even though he usually asks for volunteers. In the poem, Compton credits Poitier, through his role in “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” with bringing mixed couples like Compton’s own parents together and he thanks him, with love.

During the break I asked George if I could have an appointment with him to discuss my essay. He told me to email my request, I guess because it would be easier to access his calendar in front of his computer.

He bragged that has been keeping a New Years resolution that he made in 2011. I asked what the promise was and he answered that he committed himself to leaving Canada once a month. I asked what motivated him to make such a resolution and he responded, “Harper!”

I asked George if as the poet laureate of Canada there’s an apartment for him in Ottawa. He said there isn’t but he stays in hotels and it comes out of his Library of Parliament budget.

I had thought that the Parliamentary Poet Laureate was an appointment but George revealed that he’d had to apply for the position. This is in contrast to his earlier tenure as the poet laureate of Toronto, which he hadn’t asked for. He said he was very surprised when he got the call to tell him that he was Toronto’s poet laureate.

After the break we looked at the poem, “The Essential Charley Pride”, which is another of my favourites. It begins, “There is a church of John Coltrane / Charley Pride is a heretic …” George mentioned Coltrane’s composition, “Naima”. The next two lines are “There is a Funkadelic Parliament /Charley Pride is Guy Fawkes …” This distracted George into talking about George Clinton and Funkadelic. He described Funkadelic as “acid rock with a Black accent” and told us about 1979’s “Chocolate City”, which is a rap about the first Black president. George recounted how when they were teenagers in Nova Scotia, on Saturday nights he and his brother used to turn the television to “Cousin Stacy’s Country Jamboree” which he said was a horrible amateur night with bad musicians and singers. But what they liked to do was to turn the sound down and watch the video while playing Funkadelic.

Charley Pride “endured the denigration from both sides.” A synonym for “denigration” is “blackening”. “Directing him every which way but home.” Is a reference to the Clint Eastwood movie, “Every Which Way But Loose”. “You have crossed over” is one of the many references to Robert Johnson who, as legend tells the story, received the inspiration for the Blues from the Devil when he sold his soul to him at a crossroads.

With Compton you get more than you expect.

From the poem, “Performance Bond” – “ … Those who don’t remember / repeat …” is a reference to the famous quote from Santayana. The line - “BC is not the sum of its exclusions / or the complexion of its successes …” is a play on one Martin Luther King’s statements. The poem is about the performance failure of British Columbia. “Does Emery Barnes’s body jogging through the streets of Beijing / signify “BC” less than WAC anywhere, anytime?” George asked us if we knew who Emery Barnes was. No one had an answer. “It’s Black history month!” he chastised. He informed us that Emery Barnes was the speaker of the British Columbia legislature and the first Black speaker of any provincial legislature in Canada. WAC refers to W. A. C. Bennett or “wacky Bennett”. Bennett was the 25^th premier of British Columbia and he held office for twenty years. “The Komagatamaru moves through law and Latin / to terra sine occasu …” This is a reference to the shipload of South Asians that came to just off the coast of British Columbia in 1914. There was no legal reason to refuse them, but William Lyon McKenzie King, probably upon the advice of his dog, found a loophole that allowed him to turn the 376 Punjabis away. During his twenty-two years in office, King also refused Jews, interned Japanese Canadians and said nice things about Hitler.

George said that the Japanese were our allies in World War I and the Japanese navy would regularly patrol the coast of British Columbia to protect it.

George announced that he agrees with Justin Trudeau that our electoral system is perfect the way it is.

“Epicanthal Japanese vessels in Steveston” Steveston was a Japanese Canadian town, the population of which shrunk considerably during the Japanese internment.

Compton moves seamlessly from hip talk to politics. “Youth its own ethnicity.” The poem reminds George of T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” because of its modulation of voices.

George said that the small “l” liberal dream is the acceptance of equality. Racism is not the problem but rather empowered racism and that of all “isms” is the problem. He said he didn’t want to go so far as to say that the current United States president is autocratic.

Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education was the case that allowed the United States Supreme Court decision to kill segregation.

He talked of gerrymandering, which is to redraw electoral boundaries in order to exclude certain people from participating in the electoral process.

One poem is a copy of a cheque from Wayde Compton made out to Papas Labas, who is voodoo priest from the novel “Mumbo Jumbo” by Ishmael Reed. On the memo line is written, “So I may pass through” or cross over.

One poem has two lines – “This is what it sounds like when pigeons cry / homeward.” George said we should think of pidgin English.

Another poem has three words: “ailing” then the word “water” is repeated 72 times and “spirits” is repeated 13 times. George said it is reminiscent of “Zong”, which is a concrete poem by Philip Norbese.

As we were packing up, Zack announced happily that he was one of the seven accepted into the Creative Writing Masters program. George told him that he helped create that program and that it is because of him that seven people are admitted instead of six. Zack went in the other direction while George and I went out the side door. He told me about one of the other founders of the program who had been dismissed because of sexual harassment allegations without even having a chance to be questioned on the issue. It reminded me of the whole Greg Frankson thing from a couple of years ago. George said that another faculty member had to resign because he knew something about the disappearance of native women that he couldn’t devulge.