What Does It All Mean?!!
A college student emailed me recently because he's in a group that is doing research on moi for a class project of some sort. He asked for some info, and this exchange was, I thought, particularly interesting:
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Student:
>"I was looking at
> some web sites
> about you and your record label. I'm just not sure
> exactly what your
> overall message is. Is there something you strive
> to promote or
> emphasize?
I wouldn't dream of prejudicing an audience's reaction to my work by super-imposing intent upon it. I write stories, poems and music that interest me and whatever audience might exist for it typically finds it. In this way I am very much in the vein of Percival Everett and Harlan Ellison...
If you're looking for an overall message along the lines of the thought that "My work is black art and it speaks for black people", you're looking in the wrong place. Because of the world and time we live in, work by black artists tends to do and say these things whether we like it or not, so to make it an artistic mission statement is pretty redundant. At the same time I acknowledge that my audience in recent years has become decidedly non-black, and I embrace the dialogue and impressions of non-black people that come in contact with my art wholeheartedly. It is through these very pointed yet sensible exchanges that true personal and political change occurs, and not the band-aid/feel-good-by-guilt-trip/missionary complex work that tends to stand in the all-too-common shoes of political poetry in this day and age.
Is my work political? Absolutely.
Is it black art? Absolutely.
What does it mean? Ask the audience. The only overall message that might exist for the variety of my work is that "Scott Woods has a really active imagination and can't wait to show it to you". My goal is to present what I think is good art; no more, no less. Fireman save lives. The best I can hope to do with a poem or a song is to change one.
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==========================================================
Student:
>"I was looking at
> some web sites
> about you and your record label. I'm just not sure
> exactly what your
> overall message is. Is there something you strive
> to promote or
> emphasize?
I wouldn't dream of prejudicing an audience's reaction to my work by super-imposing intent upon it. I write stories, poems and music that interest me and whatever audience might exist for it typically finds it. In this way I am very much in the vein of Percival Everett and Harlan Ellison...
If you're looking for an overall message along the lines of the thought that "My work is black art and it speaks for black people", you're looking in the wrong place. Because of the world and time we live in, work by black artists tends to do and say these things whether we like it or not, so to make it an artistic mission statement is pretty redundant. At the same time I acknowledge that my audience in recent years has become decidedly non-black, and I embrace the dialogue and impressions of non-black people that come in contact with my art wholeheartedly. It is through these very pointed yet sensible exchanges that true personal and political change occurs, and not the band-aid/feel-good-by-guilt-trip/missionary complex work that tends to stand in the all-too-common shoes of political poetry in this day and age.
Is my work political? Absolutely.
Is it black art? Absolutely.
What does it mean? Ask the audience. The only overall message that might exist for the variety of my work is that "Scott Woods has a really active imagination and can't wait to show it to you". My goal is to present what I think is good art; no more, no less. Fireman save lives. The best I can hope to do with a poem or a song is to change one.
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