JACINTA V. WHITE
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Blog based on research of African-American Churches & Cemeteries

Poetry as research

4/23/2017

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This journey backwards into the black church and cemeteries has opened me to a new discipline of writing and research. This listening, asking, recording poetically in order to grasp -- as much as possible -- my cultural history has invited me to a new world. This familiarity birthright has turned into a new awareness. 
Picture
O'Conners Grove AME Zion Church Cemetery, Belmont, NC
​Ever moved to do something you you're not familiar with to find that there is an "official" name and practice for it? I'm discovering through years of researching and writing poetry on what I'm finding, as a way to make sense of that which I haven't otherwise been able to understand, is called "poetry as method" or "research poetry" or "arts-based research." And there are other similar names and studies on how poetry informs culture and practices. (There is more about this in Patricia Leavy's book Method Meets Art and also see Sandra Faulkner's book Poetry As Method.)

This journey backwards into the black church and cemeteries has opened me to a new discipline of writing and research. This listening, asking, recording poetically in order to grasp -- as much as possible -- my cultural history has invited me to a new world. This familiarity birthright has turned into a new awareness. The Muse has a way of doing that. Inspiration doesn't tell you where it's taking you, in trusts that you will follow it to the secret rooms and graves. 

Think about it: this is a process of deeply listening, not a process of reliving what you imagine but a new experience. Listening newly and differently not only to people but to places --  the squeaks of church pews and floors, the thunder of a fist upon the lectern by the preacher, the silence in the space between breaths of congregational hymns being sung, the breeze of oak trees that have stood in the cemetery for generations, the crying of decayed tombstones -- gives us different words and insight into who we are. 

What can we learn? What has gone unsaid or unheard? Where is the pain that needs healing still? Where is the moment when love that transcends history? Is it in the pen, or the page, or the performance of poetry? Is it in remembering and raising up? Is it in the forgetting? The forgiveness? The moving forward? 

That's not for me to know, I don't think. Or to try to answer. As a poet and a researcher, it is for me to simply present, as clearly and purely as possible. I cannot dissect the reasons why I am here or draw the path that has led me to this intense inquiry. But I can lay it out on the page for us to explore and to walk about with sincerity and appreciation, believing the vibrations that I experience here are felt generations past and generations to come. 

There's a space that is void but not of meaning or of light. It is void of interruption. We are not called to interrupt but invited to observe. To sit, with our eyes closed, and observe. How do we do this? By being still and by dancing. By asking only to listen deeply to the response. By writing and writing and writing. Then sleeping and dreaming and trusting. By sharing and showing with no agenda or hope or expectation. By being sheer as lace in the thin place that history takes us and the present offer. 


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The journey backwards

4/2/2017

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Spirits would greet us at the car when we pulled up in gravel lots like they knew we were coming, and were glad to see new faces... This was something I would come to realize pretty quickly that I needed to write about. Actually, it’s as if I was chosen to give voice to that which many of us no longer hear or see in our busy, overcrowded lives.

​​I’m reading Soul Survivor: An African American Spirituality as I begin this second leg of my journey into what feels like a deserted but once lively area of the rural black south. I'm having a conversation with the words on the pages. As the writer has penned about the necessity of the black church in the black life, I am saying "Amen," or asking questions, or underlining phrases I need to contemplate further. It's my companion guide as I expand this escapade that started two years ago when one of my Dad’s brothers and I started talking about the black church.
 
Having both grown up as PKs (preacher’s kids), Uncle LeRoy and I sat outside -- having breakfast at Mary’s, downtown Winston-Salem -- when he said, “Let’s go. Let’s visit the churches your Dad and my Dad [both now deceased] served as pastor that you haven’t been to.” It was a suggestion. A passing thought. A “sounds like a good idea” idea when you have the Labor Day weekend carefreeness on your skin.
 
But it went beyond us talking.
 
Beginning in 2015, every first Sunday of the month, which is usually Communion Sunday in the protestant church, Uncle LeRoy and I would choose a church; and decide a place to meet or for me to pick him up from his Salisbury home – where my grandparents used to live.

I always happily drove while he would give me directions: “Turn here, at the corner store.” Or “Once we pass the railroad tracks...” He would share stories of growing up in the community we were visiting for the day. After service we would ride around and he would tell me who lived where, what my Dad was like as a child; show me the houses that burned, the stores that are now closed.
 
A walk into family's history that spans more than one city, one church, one generation.
 
I noticed, too, the cemeteries next to the small - could be thought of as abandoned - churches. Spirits would greet us at the car when we pulled up in gravel lots like they knew we were coming, and were glad to see new faces. This was new to me since during my childhood my Dad pastored larger city churches. This was something I would come to realize pretty quickly that I needed to write about. Actually, it’s as if I was chosen to give voice to that which many of us no longer hear or see in our busy, overcrowded lives.

That was the impetus of me applying for the Duke Energy Artist Project Grant through the Arts Council of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County.  And they caught the vision, or at least had enough faith, to support my continued research for a collection of poetry and photography of southern African American churches and cemeteries.
 
The circle has widened. This part of the journey I'm visiting churches outside my direct family relations. But the essence has remained -- that which those in the pews (and myself) are searching for -- seems to be the same. 
 
Now through September (which is when the report for the grant is due), I will be visiting the "forgotten by the masses but still present for the few" churches and cemeteries. I will be looking and listening. Wading and wondering. Writing and rewriting. I will be reading what others have written about African American spirituality and poetry. I will be pulling and placing words in ways I have not before. 

I do not know what the journey holds. I cannot know. But I am trusting it and the path. I empty myself of that which will cloud my perception. I am peeking into the past where I now stand. I have taken off my shoes to enter this sacred space. I have opened myself to this experience. I will share pieces with you, that we might feast together. 

This is my life as a poet, artist, researcher, and spiritual being. This is the gift I have been given and humbly accept.
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    I'm a poet in love with oral history and stories of the ancestors. Here, I will record what I discover and contemplate on my journey into historical African American churches and cemeteries in the South. 

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Photos from The Wandering Angel, D-Stanley
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