WORD POWER

A conversation with poet and performer Donna Garrett

By Aaron Coleman

I arranged a meeting with my friend and fellow poet, Donna Garrett, at the trendy watering hole, the Hollywood Cafe. Parked at a table on the patio, resplendent in a fedora and a white linen blouse (or was it a shirt?), was the poet goddess herself. She started the interview with her mantra.

Donna Garrett: Praise be unto God Jehovah, in the name of
Jesus. Praise be unto God Jehovah, in the name... [Smiles and laughs] It’s good to see you.

Aaron Coleman: It’s so good to see you and be seen. I always call you the “poet goddess,” because that’s how you strike me—with this presence, and this resonant voice. It makes you stop.

Donna Garrett: That’s a lot to say, and I thank you. It makes me feel good that you say that to me, and many people say that to me. They say, “If you’re talking, we gotta listen.” And that’s a good thing, because I’ve got something to say.

A.C.: Let’s talk about you personally. Tell me about your beginnings.

D.G.: When I was young, and we’re talking years back, when I was in school, I used to write poems and songs. I didn't take them seriously. But I didn’t want to work in my field of study. I didn’t want to teach. After going to college to be a teacher, I realized I didn't want to be that.

A.C.: Where did you grow up?

D.G.: In Birmingham, Alabama. I came up during the civil rights age. I was right in the middle of what went down. I’ve got this play that I’m working on, and I talk about that. And I have poem that I talk about how I “sneaked away” to attend a demonstration that my parents had forbidden me to go to.

A.C.: Were you always a rebel?

D.G.: Always! My mom used to always say that I was defiant. I had my own way to doing things. My father was a minister, and the “church dress up thing” just went on and on. I hated it. My mother always preached “foundation, foundation, foundation,” because I have always been overweight. Honey, when I finally got the chance to free myself…Well. I just wanted to be comfortable and in my own element, which was hard for me to do all while
I was coming up. I just didn’t fit the mold. I guess I had to go through that to get to where I am now. If I hadn’t have been that, I wouldn’t have gotten to be this.

A.C.: And we’re so glad that you are “this.” [Both laugh] So your writing started in school?

D.G.: Yes, I wrote about life—life as I saw it—wrote about love, about the Motown experience—the music I would sneak and listen to, because we weren’t allowed to listen to secular music. And because I have always been very spiritual, I would write about God. I believe that God is in every individual. He certainly reigns in me. I praise God wherever I am. I don’t wait to go to church.

A.C.: You know, I feel that I wouldn’t be here without His grace and mercy.

D.G.: Hallelujah! That’s all I got to say to that! You know, around ‘95 or ‘96, I began to take my writing seriously. After a serious illness in ‘91, I left my job and the rat race, which made me reconsider and stop and think about my life and direction. And during this time I wrote intensively. It was a process that continues to this day.

A.C.: So what are you currently working on?

D.G.: A play—a revival, in fact, entitled I Can Float. I first presented it in 2000 at Theatre New West. I have taken it back to the drawing board and done more work on it. I was recently requested to present it at the Oakland Box Theater, in Oakland, California. Whether that will happen or not is up in the air. Once I have it like I want it, I would present it on a street corner—you know Donna Garrett!

A.C.: You’ll draw a big crowd! Would you read something for me?

D.G.: Sure. I’ll read you the first poem from the play:

It was the South...it was fruitful...beautiful...and
deadly
Deadly to your chocolate skin
It was shameless and proud...proud of its shackles and
shame
It was the times as seen in the weary brown eyes
Of the seeds of kings
It was pain,
for it all hurt
It hurt your being, it banged and gutted
It shredded your body...made latte of your mind
And caused your soul to scream
Oh it was a way of life
Rooted deep, so deep in fear
See the horror, feel her terror
For it was slavery, reaching and struggling to destroy
Look at the children, feeling but not knowing
Disconnected, unhooked
And detached
Taken away to never see roots again
Uprooted and misplaced
Made to feel the inhumanity of a people
Reeking in madness, wallowing in hate
And rejoicing over an ill-gotten nation
Listen at their cries
More poignant than the bobwhite
That sings in the early dawn
And look, look how they dehumanize
The tyrants struggling to keep a people naked
Shake your heads in dismay, for this is history
And they say that history repeats itself
But despite it all, they evolved
They grew, and they hung on
Until their fingers were bloody
And their bones showed through, bright and white
Oh, they hung on through the hanging
Held on tightly when their women and children
Were unjustly entered...leaving their wounds
Contaminated with unwanted sawdust
Yes, it was strange fruit...but it was never
consumable
And it rotted quickly, permeating the magnolias and
dogwoods
Overtaking the sweetness that should have filled the
air
It was hopefulness out of hopelessness but we emerged
We prayed and we talked to our God and we lived
Not to have history echo the injustice of generations
We lived to regain and retain all that we forfeited to
The dreadful masters, those tyrants from hell
We lived to reconnect and prosper
We lived to rise
We lived to resurrect the spirit of our gallant
Beautiful ancestors
We lived to thwart any chance of a disgraceful
comeback
Of an evilness, that extinguishes the spirit and
Annihilates the heart
Oh, we lived to learn...lived to proclaim: Never,
never
We will allow the attempted abolishment of a race
No...we won’t let history repeat itself, because
We live

A.C.: That was epic and magnificent, Donna.

D.G.: The play from which that poem is from talks about my childhood, my defiance, the civil rights movement, my difference, and when I go to college and I find there are others like me, find out that my feelings had a name.

A.C.: Donna, how does that poem reference the now? Can you talk about the disconnect between lesbians and gays and the disconnect between the white and the black gay communities?

D.G.: There is a disconnection. But what was once miles apart are now blocks apart. Just the fact that you and I are sitting here, now, having this interview to be in OutSmart magazine, is an indication, right there, that we are not as far apart as we were.

A.C.: But you know what, I think that it might have as much to do with that as it does that cream rises to the top. And that you can’t be as good as you are without somebody finding out about it!

D.G.: [Laughs] But you know there has always been cream. They stir it briskly, so that you can’t see it. But now, I’m having a chance to speak, I’m reaching out myself, looking for support. There’s a bridge not just between gays and lesbians, but there’s a bridge between gays and gays, lesbians and lesbians. Just like there is a gap between blacks, light and dark...

A.C. & D.G. [in unison]: Hello??? [Laugh]

D.G.: There are gaps everywhere. But that’s what me and your job is, as poets, as speakers, to address it, baby. And when I got the mic, I address it! Hey! I got the mic. It’s my job to deliver a message.

A.C.: Did you experience discrimination from other blacks as a child?

D.G.: You mean, did they say, “You black thing, you?” Of
course!

A.C.: Haters?

D.G.: Mmm hmm. Like, “This one, she’s got such pretty hair, and yours is so nappy." [Laughs]

A.C.: And now everybody is trying to get nappy hair!

D.G.: Everybody is trying to get nappy hair! It’s funny out the script just flips. Discrimination has come to me in some many different forms, because I’m a lesbian, black, a woman. I’m a cross dresser. By some people’s definition, I’m transgendered. I got stuff going on. I’m handicapped.

A.C.: What roles does music play in your life?

D.G.: I think in another life, I was a singer. I love to do my work with music. I have a CD out called Honest Dialogue, and I got a chance to work with the band Phuz. They were medicine for my words. I have another mantra I use that I put to jazz music, "Gowithmebewithmestaywithme, gowithmebewithmestaywithme. “I put it anywhere

A.C.: What else is on your menu?

D.G.: I’m looking to get with my sisters to find an open mic venue. I have been talking to the House of Finesse, which is a beautiful venue. I’d like to do something on a smooth jazz level—white tablecloths, fresh-cut flowers. We want to be nice to the people, letting them listen to “the flow.” I am working with a Russian filmmaker on a trailer. I have an Italian manage for my production company, Blue Moon Productions, Rose Venestante Schmidt. I’m bridging the roads to diversity, honey. I ain’t in no hurry. Although I am coping with chronic liver disease, to give hope to all those people out there who are suffering with the same, I am going to live my life to the fullest. I’m gonna bump it up a notch!

Poet and performer Aaron Coleman collaborated with his partner, artist David Eduardo Flores Perez, on the story and dialogue for the comic strip “Diva Man,” which appeared in our April issue.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.