A native of Ohio, Marci Blackman is an African
American lesbian writer. Her first novel, Po Man's Child
(Manic D Press 2000), a story about an African American SM
lesbian who comes to terms with her family's magic, curses, and
blessings, was the recipient of the American Library
Association’s 2000 GLBT Book Award for literature and the 2000
Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Best New Fiction. An
excerpt from her anticipated second novel, a murder mystery
titled Devil’s Backbone, recently won the 2000 Claire of
the Moon Award for Fiction from the Astraea Foundation. She is
also a regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay Times,
California's largest queer Newspaper.
When asked, in a Girlfriend’s
interview, about the autobiographical content in Po Man's
Child–especially that first chapter – Ms. Blackman
responds: “Of course you lie in
fiction, but you also mix it with a little bit of truth. I'm a
storyteller; I live in my head a lot. I've dabbled in SM, but
the scene in the first chapter never happened to me, or anybody
I know of. Po's cuttings came from a short article in the
Examiner about teen sex workers in Brazil who were cutting
themselves up in order to feel. I was wondering what it would be
like to be forced to tell a story. I showed the scene to people
in the SM community, asking if it was true to the feel of an SM
scene. I really wanted to bring up the whole sadomasochistic
relationship of slavery. We need to embrace it, rather than
distance ourselves from it. The whole history of slavery is
about resistance. If someone hadn't survived, I wouldn't be
here. For six months I bought Final Call (the Black Muslim
paper) so I could write about Black Muslims without being
judgmental.
The family in Po Man's Child is a microcosm
of the Black family's experience in modern America. There's this
whole twisted area of our existence, tragedy and humor side by
side."
Marci Blackman is an African American queer
writer and a relative newcomer to the publishing world. She
started writing Po Man’s Child on January 1st 1996 at
midnight, after carrying it around in her head for years. The
start date was a conscious decision on the author’s part because
she grew up hearing the family mythology that whatever you are
doing at the first of the year at midnight is what you’ll be
doing for the rest of the year. She thought it an apt time to
start writing and wanted the tools of her ancestors to help her.
While her previous experience includes
co-editing the anthology, Beyond Definition: New Writing from
Gay and Lesbian San Francisco and writing a few short
stories and poems that were published in other anthologies it's
Po Man's Child that has received rave reviews. OUT
Magazine says it “. . . reads like 'A Raisin in the Sun"
on acid or perhaps Thorazine." I more like what the
Albuquerque Weekly had to say: "The
literary accomplishment demonstrated in this debut novel,
indicates that Blackman could be the next Toni Morrison. or
Katherine Dunn. or William Faulkner. or, plainly put, Marci
Blackman."
Blackman found the vehicle to move Po Man's
Child along while reading an Associated Press newswire story
in the newspaper about teenage sex workers in Brazil who had cut
themselves. It was a widespread phenomenon and was happening
among girls who didn’t know each other and were not a part of
any cult or club. When folks began to inquire and examine about
why the self-mutilation was happening, the girls stated they
were cutting themselves to feel.
The idea of the character of "Po" began
to develop for Blackman soon after she read the story. Po
becomes numb at seven years old and cuts herself with a paring
knife "... to feel. to prove to . . . [herself] that she
could." Po's late Aunt Florida, also a dyke like Po,
believed that their family had a particular propensity for
mental illness, a.k.a. "the curse", which manifested
itself differently in various family members. The penchant for
self-inflicted pain was allegedly derived from their slave
ancestor Uncle George. In his attempts to run away, and upon
his capture, George made it his obligation to inflict more pain
upon himself than his master did in punishing him.
Po Man's Child,
is filled with wondrous characters like Gooch Johnson, Uncle
Ray, Great Grandma Shirley Po, (for whom Po may have
been named), Hmm Hmm, Try Try, Debbie, Bobbie, Onya, Po's
parents and her S/M partner and girlfriend, Mary. The story, set
mainly in Ohio from 1970 to 1991, weaves back and forth with
snippets in slavery times and the childhood years of Po's
parents and other relatives.
Besides her writing career, Marci Blackman has
traveled with "Sister Spit's Ramblin' Road Show," since 1997.
The show features twelve women performing original works of
fiction and poetry at various open mics. Reading from the book
on the "Spit's" tour gave her a chance to develop it, get
feedback on parts of the book that needed work, and work on the
structure. Blackman says that Po Man's Child is about
healing and learning and realizing that the power to heal comes
from within. It is "one family's healing from historical,
physical, and emotional wounds. An insight into the tragedy of
the American family."
Blackman read very little fiction while
writing Po Man's Child because she felt that it was hard
to keep her own voice and not have other voices infiltrate the
story. The aforementioned comparison to Toni Morrison is apt
since Blackman credits her for having a powerful effect on her
as a woman and as a writer. She also gives props to Dorothy
Allison and Alice Walker. Blackman's style has also been derived
from and influenced by Gabriel Garcfa Marquez, Chinua Achebe,
Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, and William Faulkner. In her
opinion, these writers broke the mold regarding how writers
write and how they tell stories.
In Po Man's Child, Blackman has a
chapter entitled Beloved and has included nods to other
literary figures. Her description of the image of woman walking
around, her arms constantly in the air is reminiscent of the
phlegm ghost from 100 Years of Solitude. The works of
Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston as well as Paula Giddings's
When and Where I Enter and Elaine Brown's, A Taste of
Power served to inspire Blackman. While she used the
nonfiction titles for research, the novelists “freed up her
mind and freed her to tell the stories she wanted to tell.”
Although Blackman started out writing poetry, she doesn’t
consider herself a poet. Instead, she thinks poetry helped her
prose as she became more concerned with the lyricism of each
word and the musicality and stopped wasting words.
Many years later, the result is Po Man’s
Child. You will enjoy Blackman’s travels with Po and surely
anticipate the rest of the trilogy. We should all be glad that
writing novels is what she wants to continue to do and that she
has the courage to produce this work. Marci recently won the
American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and
Transgendered Book Award.
Source:
Mosaic Literary Magazine, Monifa, A., 2000. p.23:
http://www.sisterspit.com/tours.html
On Tour With: Marci Blackman
by Nyondo Nadi
http://www.gfriends.com/archive/gf799/pages/marcibla.htm
Publisher:
http://www.manicdpress.com/
™
Marci
Blackman
