WEBVTT

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Dear Lxxxx, In a
previous letter,

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you also ask how can short
stories address serious issues

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without losing significance.

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One of the ways would be in
the themes that convey choice

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and calling--

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can we get some light?

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I can't hardly see it.

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Oh, there we go, all right--

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choice and calling
and suggested in one

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of your letters because of our
society's fundamental belief

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in a free society.

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The reason I say this is
because some people choices have

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been geared toward
suppressing other people's

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choices and voices.

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Check Marxism.

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So to choose a unique
path in life or literature

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is revolutionary in
our mimetic society.

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Each person, including you or
I, has to be his own protagonist

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and yes, I am echoing Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man.

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Remember how the protagonist
moved to other people's choices

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before making his own.

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Failure doesn't mean we
are not capable narrators

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of life's journey.

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And failure resides, future
triumph, yours and mine,

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bottom line, we
have been writing,

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acting our stories
all our lives.

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And we conjure those
stories through memory.

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However, that cannot be
enough for the writer.

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Application develops
imagination.

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Lxxxx, the best advice I ever
received from another writer

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was fall in love with
someone else's writing

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before you fall in
love with your own.

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And since you mentioned Isabel
Allende and her writing class,

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let us turn to Flagellants
by Carlene Hatcher Polite

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to further explore
this writing life.

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This book can be viewed as a
microcosm of the Black Arts

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Movement in so much as Polite
deconstructs male and female

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assumed roles according
to the unofficial doctrine

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of the '60s.

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Jimson is a virile Black man, a
poet and idealist but fallible,

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which comes out in his
interactions with Ideal,

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a woman who refuses to
subscribe to the tenets

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around the movement because she
believes them to be oppressive.

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Jimson's flaws reside
in his inability

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to see this woman's
equal, oppressing her

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while he battles the oppressor
through revolutionary rhetoric.

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Here I want to use the
analogy of music for writing

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and the discipline
needed for both.

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Ideal re-tells the
story of Booker Shad,

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an aspirant musician
who thought he

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was ready to play jazz
until he sat in one night

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with Charlie Bird Parker.

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Bird tells him you could develop
into a real beautiful cat,

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but man, you got to study
if you really want to play.

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To become a pro you will
have to step on out, man,

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and take that step, which will
not leave you hung up in a room

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somewhere listen
to yourself blow.

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Now if I had to
translate this in a way

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to correspond to
the writing journey,

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it would begin with one
can be a stunning writer

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but one must
understand the lineage.

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Those who came before, know
their work in your sleep,

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and write every day.

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Step past that which
makes you comfortable.

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Don't fall in love with yourself
reciting words into a mirror.

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See, there is
really no difference

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between life and language.

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Miles and Coltrane
knew how to intersect

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both into neoteric
ways of looking in

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to get that feel hollowed out.

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Sometimes with china
white and tap water,

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flame in the bottle
top, and soaked up

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with a cigarette filter.

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Then a syringe, the
solution redistributed

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into the bloodstream
bringing you forward

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to the body, which is why
Miles and Coltrane slow

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brown the melody saturated
sound into a new kind of blue.

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Lxxxx, in order to begin, you
have to reach an end point.

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It is not a matter of being
smart enough, as you say.

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The bottom tip of
the rope is where

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you have to dangle perhaps
your last bit of hope.

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So you have no choice
but to climb back

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through the hole in
which you fallen.

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This is what I had to
accomplish because I did not

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want to let go.

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I desire to live
as I know you do.

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If nothing else, for your son.

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Solitary time would force you to
know yourself, as I was forced.

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There are no easy
answers or solutions

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to difficult problems,
especially the ones

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you face with this court system.

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Lxxxx, today, the sun is echoing
last summer's heat, presenting

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a future soon to come.

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A cluster of sparrows outside
my window sill sing of spring.

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The trees are decorated green.

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Although the sky hints at blue,
it is more gray, reminding us

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that this world is
not a monotone drone.

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There has been a silence in
your life, which is really

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the universe way of
saying I am preparing you

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for the noise you will make.

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Linger in the
silence and use that

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to be baptized into the living.

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