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Tony
Medina - Unabashedly Political
By Carla
D. Robinson
Tony
Medina is a political poet. There was a time in popular culture,
not long enough ago, when to call a man such a thing was nearly
profane. But thanks to the persistence of artists like Medina, the
personal as political is regaining ground. Last September, many of
us lost a great deal, but there's no question that as a nation we
gained something, too. Although we may bemoan being forced to take
our collective head out of the sand, Medina is here to make sure
we consider the gift of insight that came alongside the pain, to
see that we turn that insight into the greatest gift of all,
compassion.
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© 2002 RLP Ventures, LLC
Tony Medina
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Medina, a product of the 1960's
South Bronx, fights against the marginalization of those who use
language to hold a mirror to society. As he explained in an
interview, "On one hand, you have the dominance of the MFA
program in the academy mass producing poets that are writing
stale, stagnant, imitation white poetry…. Then you have the
circus show atmosphere of the mundane and mediocre coming out of
the so-called spoken word and Slam scene." Medina believes
there needs to be a place for poets, particularly of color,
"who have something to say." To that end, he co-edited
(with fellow poet/essayist Louis Reyes Rivera) a new collection
called Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry
Jam.
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In Bum Rush, Medina writes that in
the Slam arena, "poetry is not what matters, but
performance." His stance on Slam is controversial, but, for
Medina, in the beginning was the Word. Not spoken, but written.
In the ninth grade, Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon lured
Medina into the world of fiction. "It was through fiction
that I fell in love with literature and said I wanted to be a
writer," he recalled. But when he began writing poetry three
years later, he moved away from fiction. "I didn't feel as
secure about my fiction as I did my poetry, but what I didn't know
as a young writer about fiction, I learned in poetry and began
applying what I learned in poetry in my fiction."
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Medina spends a good deal of his
artistic life working with and creating for children. Three of his
ten books are written for them. In the beautifully nostalgic
DeShawn Days, his first children's book, Medina includes an
inspiring little epilogue that relates his journey to becoming a
writer. He helps children consider the less fortunate in his
second children's book, Christmas Makes Me
Think. "I want
kids who are shaped to be materialistic and greedy to be a bit
more sensitive to the unnecessary suffering their privileges bring
to others. I want them to see how they are related to everyone on
the planet." His latest book, Love to
Langston, is a series
of biographical verses on the famous poet, written to give
children "a fuller depiction of Langston's complex and
fascinating life." Sharing words with children is but another
way for Tony Medina to craft a better world. M
May 2002 |
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RLP Ventures, LLC and/or its
suppliers. All rights reserved.