Today I interviewed Mr. Willie Williams of Broadside Press.
TW: This is Terrill Wyche for OpenAir, and today we have...
WW: Willie Williams of Broadside Press.
TW: We were just talking briefly about the Poets in Residency program and how, because of economic concerns, it has been discontinued. Now what are some other plans for Broadside Press?
WW: For Broadside, we have a third Sunday poetry series. It's at 4731 Grand River. And every third Sunday, we have an open mic. At the end, we have featured readers. Then at the beginning, we have a workshop which anyone is welcomed to come. And the only thing we say is, if you're willing to come to a workshop, then you've got to be willing to work. We have an exercise that we do in class. Then, and we're hoping, that will then allow people to then go home and expand on what they learned. Also we're working on trying to keep the books we have in stock, and then try to republish some of the older ones. And eventually, once we get some more cash, then we'll publish some new books.
Willie Williams, poet and author.
TW: You were mentioning something about poets and poetry workshops and we briefly began to discuss it. What were some of the thoughts that you were elaborating on?
WW: Well one thing that helps all poets is the workshop, where you get into a space where you feel free to stretch, experiment with different styles, not there to be in competition, but you're there to learn how to become a better poet. And that's only really done when you can actually have someone there whose been writing longer than you or who has a different style from and you can learn from them and they can learn from you. But unless you have these type of settings, you never learn this just from open mic. In open mic, all you do is just listen to people talk, but you don't really get the interaction that you need. You don't really get the criticism, the positive criticism where people can make suggestions on how you can make it better. What you get is just some applause. And then you're gone, you don't really know what you did right or what you did wrong. You assume that because you got some applause that you did everything right. Sometimes applause is just automatic. It's just a reaction. They applaud everybody who comes up there. They don't have the ability to say, 'Are all the words in the right place; can I change this little bit around?' First of all, it's just about the applause. Did I just talk a little bit of trash or should I do something different? That's the idea of the workshop, to be able have people there whom you can trust who know about poetry and who can make suggestions on how you can make it better for you.
TW: Have you seen any performance poets that have made that transition, and what has been the key in that transition?
Aurora Harris, author, performance, and page poet.
WW: Well, the key to any of those transitions is just your ability to want to be the best. If you're going to want to be the best, then you're going to want to learn from as many people, from as many different sources as you want. There have been a number of people who have gone through that. For example, one of my favorite folks is Reggie Gibson, who was known as a performace poet but who has evolved to where he's a performace poet and a page poet. You got some other poets like Vivee Francis whose been able to do the balance. Even here today you've got Aurora Harris who can do the balance, but it's the ability for you to be able to understand that a spoken word poem is different from a written poem, and you've got to be able to know what best works for the spoken part of it and what best works for the written part and to learn both of them. And the ideal, the perfect poet is one who can do both and that's hard to do both well.
TW: OK. Thanks. This has been Terrill Wyche for OpenAir.
For further information about Poet In the House and other Broadside Press publications, please visit the on the web at www.BroadsidePress.org.
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