5 minutes 5 questions with, interview, poems, poet, poetry

5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… John “Survivor” Blake, author of Warm Tequila and Cold Blood

August 19, 2009 Joey Pinkney

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Intervie
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
John â€œSurvivorâ€ Blake, author of Warm Tequila and Cold Blood

â€œJohn â€œSurvivorâ€ Blake enters a place in his writing that few others I know dare to. With a pristine voice of epic magnitude, Blakeâ€™s words pull the reader or listener into the heart of his raw, fragmented truth of unshakeable power. He understands the incredible responsibility of being an artist; as much as anyone I have ever known.â€ – Carlos AndrÃ©s GÃ³mez.

What if someone pointed out a homeless vagrant to you and said, “That’s going to be a well-known poet and biographer, and he’ll change lives around the world?” Would you laugh; raise an eyebrow and inquire as to their usage of narcotics; check them for a fever? Imagine a man against all odds; born dopesick, poverty-stricken, expected to fail… then a poem saves his life!

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Warm Tequila and Cold Blood?

John Blake: Well, after losing my immediate family to heroin, AIDS and prison, I battled with depression for years. I couldn’t accept I was going to go through life. At the time, I was only 34 and already without my parents and most of my siblings.

I began finding sanctuary in bottles of tequila. By the time I got to the bar, I couldn’t wait for the bartender to shake, stir or prepare my drinks. I told them to “just give it to me warm”.

The world just seemed so cold to me. Tequila felt like the only warmth in my life. Television began to depress me; glory-killing, girls too young for what they were advertising on the screen, the news, politics, everything just seemed “cold blooded”.

JP: What sets Warm Tequila and Cold Blood apart from other collections of poetry?

JB: Three things: (1) CÃ¡rlos AndrÃ©s GÃ³mez told me, “Poetry’s like sex; nothing happens until you get your clothes off”. So I got very, very vulnerable with this book. I expressed my ideas and experiences that I would not normally share with strangers.

(2) Editors. I wasn’t afraid to let some of the best modern poets of our nation take a look at my work and guide me to an exceptional place: Samantha Thornhill, Jeanann Verlee, Rachel McKibbens, Rose Smith, Rob Sturma, Laura Yes, and many others.

(3) I stopped caring with publishers wanted. That was my biggest mistake in the beginning: writing for publishers when all the while I should have been trying to purge what my spirit was telling me to get rid of; what my poems demanding that I scribe!

JP: What are the titles of the other poetry collections you have self-published? And tell us a little about them.

JB: Well, the first was Leap from the Cliff: Wings Only Grow When Needed, which was the first risk I took with writing. It’s still the favorite of most admirers of my work. Then came Mama Said which was an entire book of about twenty poems dedicated to my Mom and other single, hard-working women around the world.

Then I wrote Warm Tequila and Cold Blood and When Peace Comes and published them at the same time. Warm Tequila and Cold Blood was a serious purging and When Peace Comes was the acceptance. I’ve come full circle with the dope, the booze, the loss and all the other pain. I’ve climbed over and landed smooth.

JP: What do you do to get your poetry known to the public?

JB: Everything from selling my merchandise directly after shows to offering free copies to bookstores in every city I tour. I began by selling them in Union Square Park. I had a table, and I’d even walk up to groups offering to share my art. It took courage, but what doesn’t?

JP: What’s next for John “Survivor” Blake?

JB: I’m taking on my memoir and The Greyhound Essays. The memoir will be a five-part series, and the first book will be title Drifting from Fire because my grandmother promised my biracial parents that nothing would hurt me too deep; racism, poverty…nothing; that I would overcome it all like smoke “drifting from fire”.

The essays will be about my cross-country travels from poetry venue to college to jails; facilitating workshops and performing. I rode Greyhound buses for most of it, and you’d be amazed what I learned about this nation and its residents. So The Greyhound Essays are coming. Then I plan on sitting next to Oprah on ABC and telling the world “Nothing, nothing can stop us as long we we’re willing to walk through it”.

http://www.johnsurvivorblake.com
http://www.facebook.com/johnsurvivorblake

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Thank you Elissa Gabrielle and Peace in the Storm from Joey Pinkney

August 18, 2009 Joey Pinkney 12 Comments

I have to continually thank Peace in the Storm Publishing and Elissa Gabrielle. Both the publishing company and the publisher have afforded me an experience I imagined but never thought would really happen. My inclusion in The Soul of a Man: A Triumph of My Soul Anthology has afforded me the opportunity to travel around the country promoting not only myself as an author, but more importantly an anthology that flies in the face of what is thought is possible for a group a African American men – collectively working together for the good of the community at large. As a natural extension of The Soul of a Man, I am starting to meet a lot a great people in the literary industry not only online but face-to-face.

On Saturday, August 8, 2009, I had the chance to travel to Atlanta, GA, and meet four of my Soul Brothers: Brian “BG” Ganges, Maurice Gray, Jr., Marc Lacy and Alvin Romer. We took the Georgia Black Business Expo by storm. Looking good and feeling good, we came together and met for the first time. We drew people in with our natural charm and even more compelling contributions.

To paraphrase Soul Brother BG, “We are not the victims, we are the victors of circumstance.” That simple phrase sparked much conversation and a genuine interest in not only the book but the contributors. Our enthusiasm carried over to the passersby of our second location: Border’s Bookstore in Stonecrest Mall in Lithonia, GA. Within a few hours, the Soul Brothers sold 20 plus in that store. We hit people from different angles with our mixture of personalities drawing different people for diverse reasons.

On a solo mission, I visited the fine ladies of The Phenomenal Women Book Club (PWBC) in New Orleans, LA, on the following Saturday, August 15, 2009. (Special thanks to Makeda Peterson, Erica French and Jovel Finney) The was a first for me. I was actually meeting a group of people to discuss my contribution, the short story “Like Father, Like Son”. I was greeted with smiles and Louisiana accents as the Erica and Jovel picked me up from the airport. They handed a battery of insightful questions about men and their role in relationships with women children and anything else you can think of. I had to represent not only myself and my Soul Brothers but also African American men! I did it the only way I knew how, with pure honesty.

The PWBC gave it to me straight up, no chaser. We discussed, and sometimes debated, what made men tick and how women can better understand and help men become better men. Although I was the only male participating in this discussion, at no time did they attempt to make me feel uncomfortable. We opened up like I was a regular in their group. Don’t get me wrong, our mutual respect did not translate into total aggreeance. But that was cool, that’s how healthy conversations can go.

They didn’t hold back when telling me what they didn’t like about my short story and the book in general. Constructive criticism was very insightful and welcomed. When asked about what direction I should go in when fleshing the short story into a novel, I got a wealth of great information from avid readers who want to see it continue. I couldn’t pay for a situation like that!

My next phase of promoting The Soul of a Man and “Like Father, Like Son” is going to be more local in nature. I learned a lot from my outtings in Atlanta and New Orleans. I hope to apply what I learned to the communities of the Raleigh-Durham area.

Who knew a simple MySpace message would turn into a life-changing event? I surely didn’t. Once again, thank you Elissa Gabrielle and Peace in the Storm Publishing.

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Book Review: Her Little Secret by T. Freeman, Jr.

August 15, 2009 Joey Pinkney

Her Little Secret
by T. Freeman, Jr.
(Sleepy Eye Publishing)
5 out of 5 Stars

T. Freeman, Jr’s Her Little Secret is a masterpiece which encompasses gritty situations, the perfect use of slang and picturesque scenes from the roughest hoods to the absolutely luxurious locales from the East and West Coasts. Freeman invades the mind of his readers with the sometimes harsh but thoroughly adventurous life of Lerrez Crawford. Born in complete squalor to two drug-addicted parents, life deals Lerrez a bad hand from the very beginning. Dark-skinned, thick and undeniably beautiful, her life would be anything but sweet as she struggles to escape the grips of the cold streets of inner-city Camden, NJ.

Lerrez’s attempt at elusiveness is met with the domino effect of tragedy after tragedy. Before she can reach 18-years-old, she gets shuffled off to a foster home, thrust onto the streets, housed in juvenile detention and taken by her long-lost grand mother. During this whole ordeal, she experience sexual and drug abuse, murders and misadventures that are not too uncommon for people surviving in inner-cities across the nation. A chance meeting with a big-time producer from L.A. proves to be the ticket to stability. Just when she finds solace with the love of her life, all of the dirt she did in Camden threatens to snatch away her fairytale ending.

What really makes this novel pop is T. Freeman’s effortless use of slang and location. Being the perfect guide, he puts foreign slang words in context. He also gives you a street-level view wherever his characters are. Her Little Secret takes you from the crowded projects of Camden to the city blocks of New York City to the socio-economic extremes of L.A. Freeman doesn’t just reference a location. He gives you street names and landmarks in a way that perfectly complements the wicked plot twists.

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