On St. Patrick's Day, I went to the Meetery Eatery to listen to a poet whose work I'd heard before, but I learned something about this poet that I'd never known before. You see, many performance poets either don't have or don't reveal their scholarly attributes in either their writing or their performance technique. Mr. Thomas Park is no such man.
Thomas Park in complete focus while performing live at the Meetery Eatery on St. Patrick's Day.
In his work, you hear his southern roots, his northern life, and everything in between. Introducing, Mr. Thomas Park.
TW: This is Terrill Wyche for OpenAir, and today we have...
TP: Thomas Park.
TW: Tonight I heard you read. I've been listening to you read and perform for about 6 months, maybe more, but I never heard you bring it like you brought it tonight. What's the source of all of this?
TP: Well it actually is just about coming out here. I consider the talent that the Meetery Eatery has is consistent with that of some of the best workshops that I've ever sat in. And just being here, week in and week out and listening to the talent and the energy and just being a serious artist, trying to emulate what I hear, I'm appreciative that the results resonate in my performance. I really worked hard because I feel the artist here work very hard. I just appreciate that my performance tonight reflected that hard work.
TW: What was the first thing that led you to write poetry?
TP: Frustration. Frustration at living in the South. The social structure. It was basically early in the 70s, my only way of fighting back. I guess the system was pretty well-entrenched in the South.
TW: What was it like down South? Give us a story of what went down in the South, something that you can remember.
TP: One of the bigger things that I remember are expecting the 'yes sir,' even down to teenagers expecting you to address them as 'yes sir,' 'no sir,' and how they would call grown people by their first names. And the fact that, they always felt like black people didn't deserve good jobs, wanted to give you hand-me-downs, like it was, 'business-as-usual.' I mean, even in that poem that I did, I've known white people to feel offended because colored people protested that we were violating their civil rights, and those are some of the real frustrating things that led me to write.
TW: Tell us a little bit about the life on the farm. I know about the 'Mule Poem.' Tell us a little bit about that farm life.
TP: It was very difficult.
TW: First of all what state were you in?
TP: We were in North Carolina. It was the tobacco belt, and so I was primarily employed in picking the tobacco and getting it to the barn. After tobacco, we'd have...Well there wasn't much cotton. There'd be soybeans and corn and tomatoes. There would always be something to do on the farm. We were a bit more fortunate, but I still had to go out and work for other people, at that time. The white people would ride the tractors, and the black people would use the mules and stuff, so we still got the brunt of the hard work.
TW: Now when did you come up to Detroit, and about how old were you
TP: I came here in 1958 with my parents, but I left in 1972, 1971 actually, and I finished high school and came back and attended Wayne State from 1976 to 1978. And afterwards, I went back to North Carolina hopefully to get married, and I was married, but those kind of things didn't work out well. I still went back to agriculture and the like, and I became ill about three years ago, so I had to give up that type of work. I still had the option to go to school, as opposed to getting some type of disability that just wasn't going to cut it. I came back to Detroit in a permanent invictus mode like, 'I will not be defeated.' I will make the best out of this bad situation. It led me to eventually reap some of the benefits of being here. I've seen some really positive things happen from just working hard and being around good serious artists.
TW: Who are some of your poetic influences?
TP: Well Sterling Brown is one. I really love Sterling Brown's work. I really love Amiri Baraka's work. I really love work by Sonia Sanchez, and there are some experimental people like Clark Coolidge that I've come to appreciate. I'm just such a novice, and I feel that I don't really know anything about all of these poems and styles, so it's like an exciting journey, learning the different ways that I can get my work out.
TW: What have been some of the high points in your writing points thus far? I remember Tom mention that you won some awards. Tell us about some of those.
TP: Well last year at Wayne State, in the English Department competitions, the final judges were from New York, I came in second in the Agnes Burton Competition for a collection of poems. I came in first in the Patch Competition for a collection of poems. I came in first in the Thompkins Award for a collection of poems, and I was entered by the school that by having won, placed me into a larger competition at the University of Virginia where I was really surprised. I wrote the poem 'Country-Fied', about my life from south to north back south again and north again. I submitted that, and there were something like 800 submissions. I made the cut that made me one of the Best Emerging Poets of 2005. I do consider it one of many anthologies, but I was proud to get published.
TW: Wow, that's powerful. What are some of the future plans that you have for your poetry?
TP: Right now, I'm working on an advanced project in class which is a collection of chap books that have different themes in poetry, and I'm assembling them as a text that can be read interchangeably. You can just pull the text out that pertains to social matters, or it might be homoerotic reading, or it might pertain to blackness things like that. It's a collection of poems that is going to comprise two books. Right now, I'm on the 8th chapter, so I've got 2 to go. I'm going to enter one in a competition here in Detroit, and I'm going to enter another in the Cave Canem Competition in New York. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed.
TW: All right. Well, you sound like you've got a lot on your plate. For a guy who says he's a novice, it sounds you've found your stride. You're doing a lot, and it's incredible given all that you've accomplished in that short window of time, since you've gone public with your poetry. We look forward to seeing you here in and in bigger and better things. I'm going to end the interview, and thank you very much.
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