The art of collaboration

Theodore A. Harris, Drowning in Bones and Flames, 2002

Those of you in the New York City area may be interested in attending a book party at the Bowery Poetry Club on July 23rd at 7 p.m. for Theodore Harris’s Our Flesh of Flames—a collection of Harris’s photocollages with accompanying “captions” (though they’re really poems) by Amiri Baraka. Those of you not in and around NYC might want to check out the book itself. I first met Harris at Amiri and Amina Barakas’ house in Newark during one of their Kimako’s Blues People gatherings. One Saturday night each month, poets, writers, political activists, jazz musicians, students, and the occasional crank would listen to each other read, perform, and talk in the basement. Amiri would run the sound system, and usually read at some point in the evening, oftentimes with musical accompaniment. Upstairs, big pots of beans and rice were shared by all the guests.
Harris would come up from Philadelphia to show his artwork. I was impressed at the time, and readers of my “Haunted America” Harriet entry from June 16th will note his work’s resemblance to the Martha Rosler photomontages I posted. A selection of Harris’s photocollages has now been published by Anvil Arts Press. Harris digs deep into America’s past and present racial strife, juxtaposing institutional and structural racism—and its roots in an inequitable and exploitative economic system—with its human victims. The collages are full of images of the U.S. Capitol building, Christian iconography, American flags, the police, and travelers cheques. Anonymous faces—mostly black—manage to express at least a small measure of defiance, however challenging the circumstances. Baraka’s fifteen accompanying poems are written in his grittiest political vernacular: