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Angela Williamston's Poet On Watch
By Steven G. Fullwood
One look at the cover of Angela Williamston's first book Poet on Watch (P.O.W.),
and you know you're in for something different. A sepia-toned photo of Williamston is
flush left; words pour over her face as she looks out into the world; to her right is the
title of the book. It looks more like a movie poster than a book cover - but then this is
no ordinary book.
Williamston (who is also known as P.O.W.) is the director and producer for Blowin' Up a
Spot Video Magazine, a local cable access television show in Houston, Texas. The
"video" magazine's primary goal is to make media accessible to those who have
little or no access to media technology, thus increasing their media literacy. What
Williamston does with P.O.W. is to consolidate her political and artistic concerns into
this physically small, yet dense collection of writing. P.O.W. alternately weaves between
poetry, interviews and political statements with ease, setting text against highly
stylized graphics just as interesting as the writing itself.
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Photo: Freeverse Publishing |
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Williamston (who is also known as P.O.W.) is
the director and producer for Blowin' Up a Spot Video Magazine, a local cable access
television show in Houston, Texas. The "video" magazine's primary goal is to
make media accessible to those who have little or no access to media technology, thus
increasing their media literacy. What Williamston does with P.O.W. is to consolidate her
political and artistic concerns into this physically small, yet dense collection of
writing. P.O.W. alternately weaves between poetry, interviews and political statements
with ease, setting text against highly stylized graphics just as interesting as the
writing itself.
Williamston is a talented writer. Her writing style is a hybrid of the work by
revolutionary poets Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka and CUNY Professor Leonard Jeffries, the
man who divided the world's population into "ice people" and "sun
people." She updates their educational and political concerns with the notion of
media literacy. In her artists’ statement, Williamston pointedly asks, "who
provides media literacy to the community at large?" She goes on to contextualize this
provocative question by saying "Sunchildren, even though we obtain 85% of information
from visual images and 15% from print, most of these images and literature are totally
irrelevant to our daily lives and our experiences." Williamston makes it clear that
she wants to even the playing field by educating black folk about mass media and how we
can take control of it.
Although the book waxes politically from commentary on the lynching of James Byrd in
“Jasper, Texas, Summer 1998” to arrested development in “Cell Blocks of the
Minds,” it packs its most salient wallop with its love poems, “Emotional
Deposit” and “What If.” “Emotional Deposit” starts with the lines
“love is revolutionary” and dips into the space where fantasy can move you to
action. “What If” takes a similar approach and moves the speaker to pose the
question “what if I looked you deep in your sugar brown opals and pulled your soul
out?” These brief glimpses into Williamston’s romantic side are refreshing. They
bring a private side out of a very public woman.
It’s important to mention that P.O.W. is a collaborative effort. The book is
introduced by Darian Ward, a Houston news anchor, features a probing essay, “90
Mysticism ‘in Blackface,’” by Andrea Roberts, and closes with an afterward
by Sharon Bridgforth. A list of “credits” adorns the back page, where copy
editors, street photographers and layout designers get a bit of the spotlight, as well
they should. Their efforts, combined with the urgency of Williamston’s storytelling,
make P.O.W. a knockout punch. M
June 2000 |
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