Some people are either unable to or unwilling to take responsibility for where they are. They have a past. They have ancestors. Here in the States, w… - Lois Elaine Griffith
" "Some people are either unable to or unwilling to take responsibility for where they are. They have a past. They have ancestors. Here in the States, we don’t pay too much homage to our ancestors. And at the Cafe we were always very conscious that we don’t come from nothing...There’s something in Latin American culture and Native American culture—and Caribbean culture too—we have no problems in conversing with the dead. We have no problems in talking about the ancestors and the blood in conversation. That is not comfortable in American culture.
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About Lois Elaine Griffith
Lois Elaine Griffith is an artist/writer/teacher and one of the founders of the . Of Barbadian roots, She is author of the novel Among Others She was the co-editor of Action: The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theater Festival (1997), with . Her plays include Cocanut Lounge, Dance Hall Snapshots, Hoodlum Hearts and White Sirens.
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Lois Griffith
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Additional quotes by Lois Elaine Griffith
I think that’s one thing, too, about the Nuyorican. The desire for people to want to come together to be in community, to want to be a part. In those early days, on 6th Street, there were some poets that used to get there early, before the place even opened, to trade their words off in a very serious way. “I wrote this last night. You have to check it out!” That kind of passion, and it wasn’t something to joke about. And everyone understood, “Yeah, this is our community. This is what we do. We’re serious about this poetry, about these words. Yeah, I want to hear that poem! No, I don’t like that poem you wrote. Let me tell you the line that doesn’t work.” In really serious ways like that. And I don’t see that anywhere now. And especially in the last years where I was really active at the Cafe, everyone came in and just wanted to be a star. And I shouldn’t lay blame, but Russell Simmons who came around with the Def Poets and all that. “Come with me. I’ll take you to Broadway! I’ll put you on TV! Everyone will see you on TV!” It kind of polluted the intent of what we were doing. That kind of twisted the mindset, just undermined the real purpose and value of the writing, of the creative act. Because you don’t do it to be on TV. You do it for you, because you have to do it! Initially, that was the intent. We have to have this community! We have to share our voices. Nobody else out here is listening, so we’ll make our community. And that’s what it was about.
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