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摘 要：本文是作者对宾夕法尼亚州立大学美国文学教授尼尔森教授所作的深度访谈。尼尔森教授是美国著名的文学评论家和诗人、二十世纪美国文学，尤其是非裔美国文学专家。他著作等身，其文学评论著作五部，诗集七部，选编诗集四部，其作品曾获格特鲁德·斯泰因创新奖、美国图书奖等各类奖项。尼尔森教授对非裔美国诗歌和诗学有很高的建树，对非裔美国实验诗歌、非裔美国先锋诗学、非裔美国文学传统、音乐（尤其是爵士乐）和黑人文学、黑人文学理论和评介、种族和黑人文学等均有深刻的见解。
关键词：非裔美国诗歌；先锋诗学；口传文化；爵士和黑人文学
中图分类号：I106 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1003-6822（2016）05-0008-10
Zhang： First off， congratulations on your recent publication of What I Say： Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America. Speaking of the anthologies of poetry by African-Americans， you’ve been acutely aware of the serious political motives that often underlie such compilations. I guess this is why in the anthologies of African-American poetry with you being the editor， you attempted to present many examples of challenging， complex and innovative poetry that have not been embraced in the newly broadened anthologies of American literature. Like in this book you explode narrow definitions of African-American poetry by examining experimental poems often excluded from previous scholarship. In your own words， your concern （at the early stage of a study of the poets of black experiment） has been to demonstrate the existence of discrete communities supporting avant-garde work in African-American poetics. It gives me a feeling that it’s been a mission of yours to introduce and justify for the neglected African-American poetry， especially. the work of many experimental black poets to the contemporary readers. What’s being the incentive？
Nielsen： I didn’t start out with the mission， but it became a mission. During the period of the Black Arts Movement， roughly from 1965 to 1975， many American publishers began publishing anthologies of African-American poetry. There have always been some， even in the 1900 there were already collections of African-American poetry， and there were some in the early part of the 21st century， and some in the 40s and 50s. But with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement， probably by the Black Power Movement， American publishers wanted to publish lots and lots of books by African-Americans about African-Americans. So there were at least 24 to 30 anthologies of African-American poetry published during that time period. Most of them included a wild variety of different kinds of poetry， so they would have the sort of （quote and quote） mainstream poetry but they’d also have the experimental poetry because they were really representing every kind of African-American poetry there was. By the late 1970s， publishers won’t publish as much black poetry as they had been before， sort of wind down for a little while. Then in the 1980s， in American universities there was a movement towards what is called multiculturalism， trying to be more inclusive， trying in literature courses to include the literatures， not just of white Americans， Latino Americans， Asian Americans， African-Americans， Native Americans， and so forth. So there was a need for new anthologies， particularly for people who used to teach in the schools. And so in the 1980s we again got several new anthologies about African-American poetry， but most of them left out the experimental writers， so that a myth slowly took hold in readers and professors both， a myth that African-American writers just wrote poems about the black struggle while the white poets were doing all the experiments， which was absolutely not true. And if you read all of the books of poetry that came out you thought it wasn’t true. But if you just read those anthologies you wouldn’t know how much experimental poetry by black poets there was. So in my work， first in my criticism， amid the beginning of 1990s， I was writing more and more about the black experimental poets， and several people suggested that I should do an anthology， but I was all by myself； I didn’t have any research money， I felt like I didn’t really have the resources to do it. My colleague Lauri Ramey is another person who said that I should do such an anthology， and I told her I don’t have any help， and Lauri said that she’d help me. So we began working on this project， and it’s then 15 years long project， two anthologies. The first anthology is roughly from 1948 to 1977， and the one that just now came out is roughly from 1977 to now. And so with these anthologies， you can really see the evolution of the more experimental side of that poetry that had been visible in the 1960s but had been sort of covered up in the time since then. So it has been a mission to provide a more realistic view of the truth of African-American history. I mean poetry in its fold， but also it’s a mission with arguing that this is some of the more interesting poetry. Zhang： African-American literature is thought to be preliminary realistic in style and sociological or political in content， do you agree？
Nielsen： No， that’s what some people have thought. African-American literature just like any other literature goes to different phases and periods. Realism was the dominant style in fiction in African-American poetry from about 1901 through the 1930s， but that begins to change particularly after World War II， and always writers wrote in other ways. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was published in 1952； that’s not a realistic novel. It is still about the social political issues of facts against African-Americans， but it’s not a realistic novel， the main character supposedly living underground from there. So the period of realism in African-American literature is really about 40 or 50 years long. Now it never goes away. You know just like realism in American literature there are still authors who write in realistic mode， but there are other authors who write in surrealistic mode， and there are writers who write in different ways.
Zhang： The avant-garde expressions， despite the obvious examples of Langston Hughes， Amiri Baraka， and Ishmael Reed， are frequently overlooked. Prof.， could you tell us the extent to which the avant-garde expressions are important and the necessity to focus on avant-garde approaches in African-American texts？
Nielsen： Well， again， there are too many people who read African-American literature only because they think this is how to find out about African-American life. And again if your primary interest is just to know what it’s like to be African-American， you should probably read non-fiction. Because a novelist， or a poet or a playwright is trying to create art. You don’t look at a painting nowadays to find out what it’s like to be somebody； you look at a painting because you are interested in the way that you look at colors and shapes and so forth， and the same is true of literature. To me， the most interesting literary artists are the ones who are experimenting with the form and the language， not just the subject matter. And you could even include Ralph Ellison. Most people wouldn’t think of Invisible Man as an avant-garde novel； by the time it was published it was a little unusual， compared with the other most African-American novels. Poets in particular； poets are always exploring what language can do， what we can make out of language. And the avant-garde poets are never just interested in communicating your message. They are never interested in telling us the story. They are never just interested in talking about a political issue. They are always interested in what we can learn about language， what we can do with language， and how we can make language do different things than one used to do. And to me that’s why they are so interesting and so exciting. Now again you mentioned Amiri Baraka. The Black Arts period was this unusual period in that it was one of the rare times when there was a political movement， the Black Power Movement that had many poets in the leadership. So Amiri Baraka was a poet， but he was also the leader of the Black Power Movement. I cannot think of any other political movement in American history that had so many poets that are very fond of it. And not only did they have poets that are fond of it but many of the poets like Baraka who are avant-garde poets. Now in a sense then that people sometimes try to make the argument that there is an opposition between progressive political thinking and avant-garde writing. It’s a very mistaken argument. It’s an argument made by people who think that everyday people can understand avant-garde poetry， so they think that if you are a politically progressive artist， you have to write poetry in very simple words that everyone can understand right away， but that’s not the way Baraka wrote poetry. Baraka’s poetry is very strange， intriguing and sometimes difficult. And yet it’s about radical politics at the same time.
So another part of my mission is to break down this false opposition between progressive politics and avant-garde aesthetics. And again what we’ll have to do is to look at the black art period： Amiri Baraka， Sonia Sanchez， Ishmael Reed， Clarence Major， and you see all of them have progressive politics. Also， it’s not hard to find reactionary people who wrote avant-garde poetry. And you know an-reactionary people who wrote very straightforward plain poetry. So the politics aren’t there very much connected to these studies， even though people would like to think they are.
Zhang： You’re also concerned that the currently critical paradigm of an oral tradition might deflect proper attention to African-American literary tradition， insisting that orature is not opposed to writing and lecture is not opposed to listening. In your book Black Chant， you show us that many African-American poets were quite involved in exploring aspects of poetry performance and the vernacular oral tradition —aesthetic choices that are now accepted as characteristics of the Black Arts Movement. Prof.， how do you see such an oral tradition and this form of presentation of black poetry？
Nielsen： There’s nothing wrong with studying the oral aspect of it. The problem is people began talking about the oral tradition roots of African-American poetry， which is true. That’s also true of every poetry. All poetry began with oral practices. We have poetry before we have had life， we think. It’s also true that each oral tradition will be a little bit different so the black American oral tradition is a little bit different from Saint Latino oral tradition， from Chinese oral tradition. So that’s all fine； there’s nothing wrong with studying that name about it. The problem is that people have concentrated so much on the oral qualities of African-American poetry that they’ve tended to overlook the moral writerly， if you will， aspects of African-American poetry， so they’ve tended to， as we say， privilege poets who are very performative and recite their poems out loud and so forth， and not pay very much attention to the written language and the visual properties of it. One of the things I did at the lecture was in this new anthology there’s a very long piece by a woman named Julie Patton. She’s a visual artist and a poet. It’s a very long piece， a tribute to Amiri Baraka who has now passed away. And it’s full of visual things； she has gotten little pictures， so on and so forth. Now would you read a poem with someone drew a picture？ That’s not words； you cannot talk about it the same way you’ll talk about the oral. And when she does a performance， she cannot read that out loud and perform it； she has to show it to people if you look at it， just as with written poetry， the first thing you have to do is look at it. So again， in my criticism I’m trying to not make people stop doing the work on the orature but make them realize that that has blinded us to an equal important aspect of the word， and again people like Baraka have pointed this out. Amiri Baraka argues that （he might be wrong about this， because China had writing very long time ago） writing was begun by the Egyptians which means the writing was African. Even if Egyptians didn’t name first writing， it seems there was writing in Africa， so his conception of African-Americans being oral people who weren’t so much writing people is a dangerous misconception.
Zhang： In your lectures on Jazz writing in America， you showed the students videos of black artists and poets read out poems to the accompaniment of， say， saxophone， trumpet and drums etc.， a perfect oral presentation of poetry， but sometimes I wonder what comes to be more important， the content， the form and the ways they are presented？ If we quote Don L. Lee in Addison Gayle’s The Black Aesthetic， that “black music is our most advanced form of black art， and poetry is but another extension of black music”， music seems to be more important than poetry itself. Prof.， how do you perceive the inter-play or crossover between music， jazz and blues in particular， and poetry （or in a broad sense， the African-American literary works） and the extent to which music shapes or influences the development of black poetry？
Nielsen： Keep in mind too I mentioned the visual aspect. There is a whole kind of poetry called visual poetry that you literally cannot read out loud， you have to see them on page. Sort of like there’s also a form of poem called concrete poetry while the type on the page has a shape to it. For example， there was a British poet who made a poem that was printed in the shape of an altar of a church， and there was an American poet who published a poem that on the page it’s in the shape of a butterfly. Now that’s concrete poetry； they are still using words and printed letters， so you can actually read it but you cannot read the shape； you can see it. There’re also these visual poets， and some of their creations don’t even have any English words in them； they might have some letters， but it’s like a work of visual art to look at， but they still call it poetry. You cannot perform those in public； most of us write poetry that you cannot perform in public， and there’s a whole type of poetry in the US called performance poetry， where the emphasis really is upon the public presentations and the recitation and usually physical performances as well. I’ve always said that if it’s not a good poem on the page， it doesn’t matter if it’s beautifully performed； I might appreciate the performance but I may never read the poem. So there are performance poets that people enjoy going to see， but the poetry is not very good； they are very good performers of not very good poetry； it’s like a very great actor can make a bad poem sound wonderful， but then he reads the poem， you get not so interested in it anymore. So all of these are shoes tied up in it. Both Don Lee and Baraka had made this argument about black music being the most advanced form of art in black Americans. It’s true the black music is incredibly and beautifully evolved， complex and interesting； I don’t know how you’d prove it was more advanced than painting， that it was more advanced than writing. Part of this is political and class argument in that Baraka， when he was a young man， thought of the existing African-American literature as the literature of the middle class， because he had to have education to be a novelist and poet， and he felt the middle class were more likely to be assimilated into， sort of try to protect themselves from the oppression by being quiet and not upsetting the white political structures over while he found that musicians were freer， and more oppositional and more often from the lower classes. You can make a case for all of them， because that has made the music itself as music more advanced， for something else. I’m not sure if it does， the politics might be more advanced but it’s music itself that’s more advanced. Anyway， as you see from both Don Lee and Baraka， this is a long standing belief that music was the most advanced form， and so they both wanted writing to be as advanced as music and they both worked with musicians quite a bit.
Now again， you can have a poem performed with music while the music almost makes you not notice that it’s not a very interesting poem. We didn’t read very many of those in class； I selected the poems that I thought were doing the most interesting things， even when like Paul Blackburn’s poem about singing “Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot”. That’s a very simple poem； it’s just words from the song that Sonny Rollins was playing， arranged in a page. But as we saw when we looked at it and thought about the music and so forth， it existed a kind of complex relationship to the music.
Anyway， the point is， really good interactions of jazz and poetry occur when the musicians and the poets are attending to one another’s contributions. In the early days of jazz recordings of poetry （there are two albums by Jack Kerouac， are like this，） where the poet and musician were going to the studio； the musicians would just play the song they knew， and the poet just read some poems he brought， and there was no real interaction between the two. But an example of a different approach， in the 1980s， Baraka put out an album called New Music New Poetry， with the greatest tenor saxophone player David Murray， the drummer Steve McCoy and Base player Fred Hopkins. David Murray the saxophone player， grew up reading Amiri Baraka’s poetry， so he knew that poetry， and when you listen to that album， you can hear that the musicians are not just playing， they are listening to the poem， and sometimes they will hear something in the poem that will give them an idea for what to play， and similarly， sometimes Baraka will hear something they’re playing and do something different in the way he is reading his poem. You can also compose something like that； it doesn’t have to be improvised although jazz is always said to have an improvisational part， so there have been people who deliberately composed a piece of music to go with a particular piece of poetry. There’s a drummer named Ronald Shannon Jackson who did an entire CD with just him playing the drums and reciting poetry while he was doing it. So for example， there’s a sterling brown poem， just a silly little poem， called “putting on the dog”. People used to say if you are really dressed up and going to go out and spend a lot of money， show off， they will say that you put on the dog. So he wrote a little poem about this. Ronald Shannon Jackson thought up a drum solo to go with that poem， so he played the drum and recited this poem at the same time， but he recites it in a very strange voice； it’s not the way Sterling brown said it at all. So you can tell he is thinking about the interrelationship between the percussion and the words， and he did the same thing with several other people’s poems， a Robert Hayden poem， a Michael Harper’s poem， so that’s what I’d like to look for， instances where the musicians and poets are thinking carefully about the relationships between the two things and creating something new， a third thing out of those two things. Now one of the reasons you see the other kind of performance more often is most people doing these performances are not rich people， or even very well-off people. Most of us could not afford to bring a jazz band to our town， arrange a rehearsal studio； it’s been a week working on something ahead of time， so what’s far more likely to happen is some night club or school will bring in a jazz band， and they’ll bring in a poet， and they might have…for example， when Sonia Sanchez came to Penn States two years ago， there was a jazz girl who was going to perform with her； they only had one afternoon to practice and make their plans， and because she is such an experienced poet， and they are such good musicians， it sounded as if they had been practicing together for a very long time， but nine time out of ten it’s not only practice time， more often the jazz musicians would be playing， and whoever is in charge of the drummer， the trumpet players， would just turn to the poet and points out that it’s time for the poet to read the poem. That can turn out very well， but it can turn out very badly also.
Zhang： Jazz is the soul of black music （Quoting David Meltzer）. The black musicians and critics take the reins and do their own writing about jazz. Alain Locke and Langston Hughes initiate the African-American response to jazz and blues as art forms challenging the Euro-American "classical" music. Prof. what do you see the role that jazz plays in black writing？
Nielsen： Regard the literature in general， you really begin to see a connection between jazz and black literature， at the very beginning of the so-called jazz age— it’s in the 1920s， you began to see literary people talking about jazz， and that’s what we call the jazz age， so that’s not surprising. Alain Loche had very conservative taste； he really liked European classical music. Sterling Brown used to joke that Locke only had one blues record. That’s probably not true； he probably had some other blues and jazz records too. But Locke’s primary tastes were classical music， but he recognized that in the spirituals， blues and jazz， African-Americans have created an entirely new kind of music， and Locke knew it by the 1920s. The so-called classical composers were excited about black music incorporated into their music. So Stravinsky in Right Things like Writer’s Experiment， is incorporated. Or even more there’s a piece by Stravinsky， something about a soldier， I think it’s death of a soldier， was very heavily influenced by jazz. Or the European composer Dvo?ák， his New World Symphony includes many melodies that came from African-American folk music prose. And Langston Hughes comes along at the same time that Locke is noticing those things； Langston Hughes comes along and might be the very first poet ever to make the blues a form of literary poetry， because he starts to write poems in exactly a form in which blues and lyrics are made of. Sterling Brown knows that too； Sterling Brown more often has a sort of blues sensibility of poetry without having an exact form of music， but Langston Hughes writes many many poems with exactly the form of blues. Nobody has ever been doing that before， and so from that moment on， jazz and blues have probably been the most frequent musical influence in African-American poetry， and maybe in American poetry as a whole. Now there’s a lot of African-American poetry that references other kinds of music too. For example， these days， there’s a lot of hip-hop in African-American poetry， and there’s no jazz musician now who has the kind of cultural presence and authorities as of Miles Davis and John Coltrane again， probably because jazz is somewhat marginalized in America now and rock and roll and hip-hop became a really bigger thing than jazz； jazz is still there but it’s not something that everybody listens to all the time like it did in the 40s and 30s， so you do see increasingly other kinds of music that have an influence. Spoken word poetry， for example. The performers’ spoken literacy is very influenced by hip-hop. When you go see these spoken word poets， they’ll often even make the same gestures as the hip-hop DJs and Mcs. If you go to a rap show， and watch the rapper， and then go to one of these spoken word performances， events， they will be making the same movements and same gestures and so forth. So other forms of music have always been part of black poetry， and new forms have come to more prominence within poetry， but in a long run， range from 1920， it’s been almost 100 years now. The jazz is the most frequently influential form of music in African-American poetry. That’s probably because it’s the most invented of this business. Again African-Americans created Spirituals， Gospels， Blues， Ragtime， jazz； these are all creations of African-American music， but jazz is the most highly evolved， most complex， most endlessly creative， so even though jazz is not as important in American society now as it used to be， there are still new jazz artists creating entirely new ways of written music. Zhang： In fine discussion of Amiri Baraka and the little-known Harold Carrington， your concern is to draw attention to “poets whose works interrogate what literary society conceives to be blackness， what languages and what forms are critically associated with constructions of cultural blackness.” Is this about racial discrimination or the identity of African-American culture？ Could you elaborate on this a little bit？
Nielsen： Every black poet has to respond to our racialist here one way or another， even though they do not do it overtly. So for example， there was this poet named William Stanley Braithwaite in the early part of the 20th century. None of the poems he wrote ever said anything about race. He was a very influential poetry editor； every year he put up this anthology of magazine verse； that was the best poems from all the magazines. And he had a weekly column in the Boston newspapers where he reviews books of poetry. Many people reading his work didn’t even know he was a black poet， but in his life as a poet he had to contend with discrimination. For example， he did not ever get a job at a white university. He wound up later in his life teaching at Atlantic University， which is a historically black college. So even a poet， who seems to never write about race， still as a poet， he has to contend with it. The majority of African-American poets do write about this subject， because it’s the central part of their life. Now when we’re talking about racial identity， nobody knows what we are talking about， believe me， but what do all， almost all black poets have in common？ They are in common being seen as black by the rest of the country. Black people in America， on the one hand， know how they are seen by white Americans， but they also know the actual realities， their daily life， and their thoughts that intervene， and there is a tension between those two things. So， every black poetic， with one or two exceptions， will write about that in one way or another at sometime. This is just part of your being. And not doing that will be sort of like someone who never wrote a poem about love. Nobody has to write love poems all the time， they probably write very good love poems， but whoever heard of a poet who never wrote about love. Ralph Ellison once said that race is the best metaphor for the human condition. If you are an American， white or black， how can you not write about this？ Now many white poets write very stupid things but there are some who write very carefully and thoughtfully and there are some white novelists who did some very important works about race. It’s such a central part of our culture and society in America that it would be very strange if you didn’t write about it. So questions of race and society will always…as long as we have black people and white people， it’s always been there in the world. And I’ve said even though we know race doesn’t really exist biologically， it’ll probably still be an issue in America as long as it is important to white people to think of themselves as not being black people. Until that changes. Zhang： As you are both a critic and a poet， how do you see your role of being a poet？ I mean being a poet， you should pay attention to what the critics say about your poetry， while at the same time you yourself is a critic. Would you interrogate your works from the perspective of a critic？
Nielsen： Earlier in the 20th century， there was a dominant mode of literary criticism； we’ll just call it the new criticism. I know here in China， there was a kind of poetry in the last 30 years； they’re just called new poetry. There was this new criticism， more or less the criticism of T. S. Eliot， his way of thinking about poetry. And when that was the dominant way of thinking about literary criticism in the America Universities， probably the dominant character in the English department was the poet Critic. People like Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren， who were poets and wrote this kind of new critical criticism. That began to die out in the late 1970s； there’s a new kind of criticism that came into force like post-structuralism， reconstruction， multi-cultural theory， and so forth. And overtime， poetry began to become kind of marginalized within the American university； so in most American universities in the English department， the people who are teaching literature and literary criticism might be the only person working on poetry in the entire department. Now this happened to be the same time period when creative writing became a big force in American universities. So In many colleges and universities， especially the smaller ones， the courses about poetry were all talks about creative writings. Not every creative writer is a good critic. Today in the US， there are at least 200 really good poet critics， who are publishing interesting poetry and writing really good criticism； most of them are not teaching writing courses， most of them are teaching literature courses. I was never hired in a poetry job， just as I was never hired in an African-American literature job. Those of us who are poets first， but then who get PHD， and do literary criticism. I think we have a different sensibility in our understanding of the language and structure than someone who’s not a poet. It’s not always true. The same way， you can be a great art critic even if you cannot paint， you can be a great music critic even if you cannot play any musical instrument， but you do have to have a deep understanding of the materials of the art form. Because poets are working with those materials all the time， they sort of have a head start over some other critics. On the other hand in my own career， because most of my work， since about 1997， has been about African-American literature， I’ve never had the problem with people applying my criticism to my poetry， because they never encourage them to do that. They could. But because I was writing black poets， they don’t think of using my criticism against my own poetry， whereas if I just wrote about the major white poets， someone might say while he says this in his criticism， and then in his poetry he does that. No one does that to me， because they don’t see the connection， but there is a connection. Amiri Baraka is probably the most influential poet on my work， ever. The first book of poetry I even bought was by LeRoi Jones. There are lots of other influences too， but he was sort of my gateway into the avant-garde poetry of the 20th century. So again， I think not only is it possible to be a great literary critic even though you aren’t a poet yourself， and I know several who are great critics who are poets， I do think those of us who are poets， we look at slightly different questions from the ones who aren’t poets； we’re probably closer to philosopher’s write about literature in that philosophers are always thinking about the nature of life in a way very similar to what a poet thinks about the nature of life. And language is the key in all of that — thinking about language， how does language work， how do we create meaning， how do we change meaning， how does language make us the people we are， those are the questions philosophers and poets both think about all the time. Zhang： Which role do you think you are more comfortable with？
Nielsen： It’s all the same to me， I mean I do them differently， but to me， it’s alrighty. Sometimes I write poems， sometimes I write criticism， but the way I go about it is different. I can write poetry anywhere； I’ve been sitting at this very table， before my notebook and start writing a poem， I cannot do that with criticism. With criticism I’ll have to have all my materials lined up， I’ll have to have my notes， my books； I have to sit at the table， my computer starts typing. Poetry I can write on my little notebook， I can write above my telephone， it’s very different， but it’s all continuing； it’s just two different sizes of the same activity. Because when I’m writing criticism， I want my criticism to be good writing. But with Black Chant， you know when you’re getting ready to publish a book， they send it to a copy editor， to make sure you don’t have quotation， citation…to make sure you don’t have incomplete sentences， but I’m never forgetting this， the copy editor who worked on Black Chant； he found a few places where I forgot a period or something； he said that he really enjoyed working on this book because of the writing. That meant more to me than almost any book review of that book because he noticed that writing itself was trying to do something in that book. And as a critic， I think that’s important. I’ve always wanted the writing itself to be interesting， not just the subject matter. The poetry is the most important part， but I’m best known for criticism， partly because poetry is so marginalized in the US.
Zhang： Well， I have to say you have been doing an excellent job both as a critic and a poet. Speaking of what you just mentioned about poetry being marginalized in the US， I’m sorry to tell you that it’s also marginalized here in China. Hopefully with your inspirational lectures on poetry upon your future visits， more and more people will come along and appreciate the beauty of poetry. That’s all for my interview. Thanks for your time， Professor. I hope you enjoyed your short stay here in CCNU.
References
Nielsen， A. Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism [M]. Cambridge： Cambridge UP， 1997.
Kun， J. Meltzer mania [OL]. http：//www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/music/ 00/03/23/FREQUENCIES.html （accessed 11/06/2015）
Lazer， H. Review： American Poetry： Accounts of the Present and the Recent Past [J]. Contemporary Literature， 1998，（3）： 475-504. Mullen， H. The Cracks between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be [M]. Alabama： TUOAP， 2012.
Thomas， L. Reviewed Work： Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism by Aldon Lynn Nielsen [J]. African American Review， 2000，（1）： 157-159.
Pennsylvania State University. Professional Biography of Aldon Lynn Nielsen [OL]. http：//english.la.psu.edu/faculty-staff/aln10 （accessed 13/05/2015）
Raussert， W. Reviewed Work： Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism by Aldon Lynn Nielsen [J]. American Studies， 1999 ，（4）： 605-608.
The University of Alabama Press. A Brief Introduction to What I say： Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America [OL]. http：//www.uapress.ua.edu/product/978-0-8173-8800-3-What-I-Say，6090.aspx？skuid=3006 （accessed 10/06/2015）
An Interview with Professor Aldon Lynn Nielsen
ZHANG Le & Aldon Lynn NIELSEN
（School of Foreign Languages， Central China Normal University， Wuhan 430079；
College of the Liberal Arts， Pennsylvania State University， University Park 16802）
Abstract： This interview bears witness to Professor Nielsen’s efforts to reassess and remap the history of African American poetry by introducing the neglected African American poets to the contemporary readers. As an extremely knowledgeable literary critic and a poet， Professor Nielsen has a profound awareness of the issues of African-American poetry and poetics， and he makes thought-provoking remarks on black experimental poetry， the African American avant-gardes， African American oral tradition， jazz and black literature， black theory and criticism， and theories of race and ethnicity.
Key words： African American poetry； avant-gardes； oral tradition， jazz and literature
作者简介：张乐，男，华中师范大学外国语学院讲师、在读博士，2010-2011年美国乔治亚南方大学访问学者。主要从事社会语言学和二语习得研究；
阿尔登·林·尼尔森，男，博士，美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学人文学院教授。主要从事诗歌创作和非裔诗歌研究。
通讯地址：湖北省武汉市珞喻路152号华中师范大学外国语学院，邮编430079
E-mail：clark_cheung@163.com
（责任编辑：刘芳）
关键词：非裔美国诗歌；先锋诗学；口传文化；爵士和黑人文学
中图分类号：I106 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1003-6822（2016）05-0008-10
Zhang： First off， congratulations on your recent publication of What I Say： Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America. Speaking of the anthologies of poetry by African-Americans， you’ve been acutely aware of the serious political motives that often underlie such compilations. I guess this is why in the anthologies of African-American poetry with you being the editor， you attempted to present many examples of challenging， complex and innovative poetry that have not been embraced in the newly broadened anthologies of American literature. Like in this book you explode narrow definitions of African-American poetry by examining experimental poems often excluded from previous scholarship. In your own words， your concern （at the early stage of a study of the poets of black experiment） has been to demonstrate the existence of discrete communities supporting avant-garde work in African-American poetics. It gives me a feeling that it’s been a mission of yours to introduce and justify for the neglected African-American poetry， especially. the work of many experimental black poets to the contemporary readers. What’s being the incentive？
Nielsen： I didn’t start out with the mission， but it became a mission. During the period of the Black Arts Movement， roughly from 1965 to 1975， many American publishers began publishing anthologies of African-American poetry. There have always been some， even in the 1900 there were already collections of African-American poetry， and there were some in the early part of the 21st century， and some in the 40s and 50s. But with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement， probably by the Black Power Movement， American publishers wanted to publish lots and lots of books by African-Americans about African-Americans. So there were at least 24 to 30 anthologies of African-American poetry published during that time period. Most of them included a wild variety of different kinds of poetry， so they would have the sort of （quote and quote） mainstream poetry but they’d also have the experimental poetry because they were really representing every kind of African-American poetry there was. By the late 1970s， publishers won’t publish as much black poetry as they had been before， sort of wind down for a little while. Then in the 1980s， in American universities there was a movement towards what is called multiculturalism， trying to be more inclusive， trying in literature courses to include the literatures， not just of white Americans， Latino Americans， Asian Americans， African-Americans， Native Americans， and so forth. So there was a need for new anthologies， particularly for people who used to teach in the schools. And so in the 1980s we again got several new anthologies about African-American poetry， but most of them left out the experimental writers， so that a myth slowly took hold in readers and professors both， a myth that African-American writers just wrote poems about the black struggle while the white poets were doing all the experiments， which was absolutely not true. And if you read all of the books of poetry that came out you thought it wasn’t true. But if you just read those anthologies you wouldn’t know how much experimental poetry by black poets there was. So in my work， first in my criticism， amid the beginning of 1990s， I was writing more and more about the black experimental poets， and several people suggested that I should do an anthology， but I was all by myself； I didn’t have any research money， I felt like I didn’t really have the resources to do it. My colleague Lauri Ramey is another person who said that I should do such an anthology， and I told her I don’t have any help， and Lauri said that she’d help me. So we began working on this project， and it’s then 15 years long project， two anthologies. The first anthology is roughly from 1948 to 1977， and the one that just now came out is roughly from 1977 to now. And so with these anthologies， you can really see the evolution of the more experimental side of that poetry that had been visible in the 1960s but had been sort of covered up in the time since then. So it has been a mission to provide a more realistic view of the truth of African-American history. I mean poetry in its fold， but also it’s a mission with arguing that this is some of the more interesting poetry. Zhang： African-American literature is thought to be preliminary realistic in style and sociological or political in content， do you agree？
Nielsen： No， that’s what some people have thought. African-American literature just like any other literature goes to different phases and periods. Realism was the dominant style in fiction in African-American poetry from about 1901 through the 1930s， but that begins to change particularly after World War II， and always writers wrote in other ways. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was published in 1952； that’s not a realistic novel. It is still about the social political issues of facts against African-Americans， but it’s not a realistic novel， the main character supposedly living underground from there. So the period of realism in African-American literature is really about 40 or 50 years long. Now it never goes away. You know just like realism in American literature there are still authors who write in realistic mode， but there are other authors who write in surrealistic mode， and there are writers who write in different ways.
Zhang： The avant-garde expressions， despite the obvious examples of Langston Hughes， Amiri Baraka， and Ishmael Reed， are frequently overlooked. Prof.， could you tell us the extent to which the avant-garde expressions are important and the necessity to focus on avant-garde approaches in African-American texts？
Nielsen： Well， again， there are too many people who read African-American literature only because they think this is how to find out about African-American life. And again if your primary interest is just to know what it’s like to be African-American， you should probably read non-fiction. Because a novelist， or a poet or a playwright is trying to create art. You don’t look at a painting nowadays to find out what it’s like to be somebody； you look at a painting because you are interested in the way that you look at colors and shapes and so forth， and the same is true of literature. To me， the most interesting literary artists are the ones who are experimenting with the form and the language， not just the subject matter. And you could even include Ralph Ellison. Most people wouldn’t think of Invisible Man as an avant-garde novel； by the time it was published it was a little unusual， compared with the other most African-American novels. Poets in particular； poets are always exploring what language can do， what we can make out of language. And the avant-garde poets are never just interested in communicating your message. They are never interested in telling us the story. They are never just interested in talking about a political issue. They are always interested in what we can learn about language， what we can do with language， and how we can make language do different things than one used to do. And to me that’s why they are so interesting and so exciting. Now again you mentioned Amiri Baraka. The Black Arts period was this unusual period in that it was one of the rare times when there was a political movement， the Black Power Movement that had many poets in the leadership. So Amiri Baraka was a poet， but he was also the leader of the Black Power Movement. I cannot think of any other political movement in American history that had so many poets that are very fond of it. And not only did they have poets that are fond of it but many of the poets like Baraka who are avant-garde poets. Now in a sense then that people sometimes try to make the argument that there is an opposition between progressive political thinking and avant-garde writing. It’s a very mistaken argument. It’s an argument made by people who think that everyday people can understand avant-garde poetry， so they think that if you are a politically progressive artist， you have to write poetry in very simple words that everyone can understand right away， but that’s not the way Baraka wrote poetry. Baraka’s poetry is very strange， intriguing and sometimes difficult. And yet it’s about radical politics at the same time.
So another part of my mission is to break down this false opposition between progressive politics and avant-garde aesthetics. And again what we’ll have to do is to look at the black art period： Amiri Baraka， Sonia Sanchez， Ishmael Reed， Clarence Major， and you see all of them have progressive politics. Also， it’s not hard to find reactionary people who wrote avant-garde poetry. And you know an-reactionary people who wrote very straightforward plain poetry. So the politics aren’t there very much connected to these studies， even though people would like to think they are.
Zhang： You’re also concerned that the currently critical paradigm of an oral tradition might deflect proper attention to African-American literary tradition， insisting that orature is not opposed to writing and lecture is not opposed to listening. In your book Black Chant， you show us that many African-American poets were quite involved in exploring aspects of poetry performance and the vernacular oral tradition —aesthetic choices that are now accepted as characteristics of the Black Arts Movement. Prof.， how do you see such an oral tradition and this form of presentation of black poetry？
Nielsen： There’s nothing wrong with studying the oral aspect of it. The problem is people began talking about the oral tradition roots of African-American poetry， which is true. That’s also true of every poetry. All poetry began with oral practices. We have poetry before we have had life， we think. It’s also true that each oral tradition will be a little bit different so the black American oral tradition is a little bit different from Saint Latino oral tradition， from Chinese oral tradition. So that’s all fine； there’s nothing wrong with studying that name about it. The problem is that people have concentrated so much on the oral qualities of African-American poetry that they’ve tended to overlook the moral writerly， if you will， aspects of African-American poetry， so they’ve tended to， as we say， privilege poets who are very performative and recite their poems out loud and so forth， and not pay very much attention to the written language and the visual properties of it. One of the things I did at the lecture was in this new anthology there’s a very long piece by a woman named Julie Patton. She’s a visual artist and a poet. It’s a very long piece， a tribute to Amiri Baraka who has now passed away. And it’s full of visual things； she has gotten little pictures， so on and so forth. Now would you read a poem with someone drew a picture？ That’s not words； you cannot talk about it the same way you’ll talk about the oral. And when she does a performance， she cannot read that out loud and perform it； she has to show it to people if you look at it， just as with written poetry， the first thing you have to do is look at it. So again， in my criticism I’m trying to not make people stop doing the work on the orature but make them realize that that has blinded us to an equal important aspect of the word， and again people like Baraka have pointed this out. Amiri Baraka argues that （he might be wrong about this， because China had writing very long time ago） writing was begun by the Egyptians which means the writing was African. Even if Egyptians didn’t name first writing， it seems there was writing in Africa， so his conception of African-Americans being oral people who weren’t so much writing people is a dangerous misconception.
Zhang： In your lectures on Jazz writing in America， you showed the students videos of black artists and poets read out poems to the accompaniment of， say， saxophone， trumpet and drums etc.， a perfect oral presentation of poetry， but sometimes I wonder what comes to be more important， the content， the form and the ways they are presented？ If we quote Don L. Lee in Addison Gayle’s The Black Aesthetic， that “black music is our most advanced form of black art， and poetry is but another extension of black music”， music seems to be more important than poetry itself. Prof.， how do you perceive the inter-play or crossover between music， jazz and blues in particular， and poetry （or in a broad sense， the African-American literary works） and the extent to which music shapes or influences the development of black poetry？
Nielsen： Keep in mind too I mentioned the visual aspect. There is a whole kind of poetry called visual poetry that you literally cannot read out loud， you have to see them on page. Sort of like there’s also a form of poem called concrete poetry while the type on the page has a shape to it. For example， there was a British poet who made a poem that was printed in the shape of an altar of a church， and there was an American poet who published a poem that on the page it’s in the shape of a butterfly. Now that’s concrete poetry； they are still using words and printed letters， so you can actually read it but you cannot read the shape； you can see it. There’re also these visual poets， and some of their creations don’t even have any English words in them； they might have some letters， but it’s like a work of visual art to look at， but they still call it poetry. You cannot perform those in public； most of us write poetry that you cannot perform in public， and there’s a whole type of poetry in the US called performance poetry， where the emphasis really is upon the public presentations and the recitation and usually physical performances as well. I’ve always said that if it’s not a good poem on the page， it doesn’t matter if it’s beautifully performed； I might appreciate the performance but I may never read the poem. So there are performance poets that people enjoy going to see， but the poetry is not very good； they are very good performers of not very good poetry； it’s like a very great actor can make a bad poem sound wonderful， but then he reads the poem， you get not so interested in it anymore. So all of these are shoes tied up in it. Both Don Lee and Baraka had made this argument about black music being the most advanced form of art in black Americans. It’s true the black music is incredibly and beautifully evolved， complex and interesting； I don’t know how you’d prove it was more advanced than painting， that it was more advanced than writing. Part of this is political and class argument in that Baraka， when he was a young man， thought of the existing African-American literature as the literature of the middle class， because he had to have education to be a novelist and poet， and he felt the middle class were more likely to be assimilated into， sort of try to protect themselves from the oppression by being quiet and not upsetting the white political structures over while he found that musicians were freer， and more oppositional and more often from the lower classes. You can make a case for all of them， because that has made the music itself as music more advanced， for something else. I’m not sure if it does， the politics might be more advanced but it’s music itself that’s more advanced. Anyway， as you see from both Don Lee and Baraka， this is a long standing belief that music was the most advanced form， and so they both wanted writing to be as advanced as music and they both worked with musicians quite a bit.
Now again， you can have a poem performed with music while the music almost makes you not notice that it’s not a very interesting poem. We didn’t read very many of those in class； I selected the poems that I thought were doing the most interesting things， even when like Paul Blackburn’s poem about singing “Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot”. That’s a very simple poem； it’s just words from the song that Sonny Rollins was playing， arranged in a page. But as we saw when we looked at it and thought about the music and so forth， it existed a kind of complex relationship to the music.
Anyway， the point is， really good interactions of jazz and poetry occur when the musicians and the poets are attending to one another’s contributions. In the early days of jazz recordings of poetry （there are two albums by Jack Kerouac， are like this，） where the poet and musician were going to the studio； the musicians would just play the song they knew， and the poet just read some poems he brought， and there was no real interaction between the two. But an example of a different approach， in the 1980s， Baraka put out an album called New Music New Poetry， with the greatest tenor saxophone player David Murray， the drummer Steve McCoy and Base player Fred Hopkins. David Murray the saxophone player， grew up reading Amiri Baraka’s poetry， so he knew that poetry， and when you listen to that album， you can hear that the musicians are not just playing， they are listening to the poem， and sometimes they will hear something in the poem that will give them an idea for what to play， and similarly， sometimes Baraka will hear something they’re playing and do something different in the way he is reading his poem. You can also compose something like that； it doesn’t have to be improvised although jazz is always said to have an improvisational part， so there have been people who deliberately composed a piece of music to go with a particular piece of poetry. There’s a drummer named Ronald Shannon Jackson who did an entire CD with just him playing the drums and reciting poetry while he was doing it. So for example， there’s a sterling brown poem， just a silly little poem， called “putting on the dog”. People used to say if you are really dressed up and going to go out and spend a lot of money， show off， they will say that you put on the dog. So he wrote a little poem about this. Ronald Shannon Jackson thought up a drum solo to go with that poem， so he played the drum and recited this poem at the same time， but he recites it in a very strange voice； it’s not the way Sterling brown said it at all. So you can tell he is thinking about the interrelationship between the percussion and the words， and he did the same thing with several other people’s poems， a Robert Hayden poem， a Michael Harper’s poem， so that’s what I’d like to look for， instances where the musicians and poets are thinking carefully about the relationships between the two things and creating something new， a third thing out of those two things. Now one of the reasons you see the other kind of performance more often is most people doing these performances are not rich people， or even very well-off people. Most of us could not afford to bring a jazz band to our town， arrange a rehearsal studio； it’s been a week working on something ahead of time， so what’s far more likely to happen is some night club or school will bring in a jazz band， and they’ll bring in a poet， and they might have…for example， when Sonia Sanchez came to Penn States two years ago， there was a jazz girl who was going to perform with her； they only had one afternoon to practice and make their plans， and because she is such an experienced poet， and they are such good musicians， it sounded as if they had been practicing together for a very long time， but nine time out of ten it’s not only practice time， more often the jazz musicians would be playing， and whoever is in charge of the drummer， the trumpet players， would just turn to the poet and points out that it’s time for the poet to read the poem. That can turn out very well， but it can turn out very badly also.
Zhang： Jazz is the soul of black music （Quoting David Meltzer）. The black musicians and critics take the reins and do their own writing about jazz. Alain Locke and Langston Hughes initiate the African-American response to jazz and blues as art forms challenging the Euro-American "classical" music. Prof. what do you see the role that jazz plays in black writing？
Nielsen： Regard the literature in general， you really begin to see a connection between jazz and black literature， at the very beginning of the so-called jazz age— it’s in the 1920s， you began to see literary people talking about jazz， and that’s what we call the jazz age， so that’s not surprising. Alain Loche had very conservative taste； he really liked European classical music. Sterling Brown used to joke that Locke only had one blues record. That’s probably not true； he probably had some other blues and jazz records too. But Locke’s primary tastes were classical music， but he recognized that in the spirituals， blues and jazz， African-Americans have created an entirely new kind of music， and Locke knew it by the 1920s. The so-called classical composers were excited about black music incorporated into their music. So Stravinsky in Right Things like Writer’s Experiment， is incorporated. Or even more there’s a piece by Stravinsky， something about a soldier， I think it’s death of a soldier， was very heavily influenced by jazz. Or the European composer Dvo?ák， his New World Symphony includes many melodies that came from African-American folk music prose. And Langston Hughes comes along at the same time that Locke is noticing those things； Langston Hughes comes along and might be the very first poet ever to make the blues a form of literary poetry， because he starts to write poems in exactly a form in which blues and lyrics are made of. Sterling Brown knows that too； Sterling Brown more often has a sort of blues sensibility of poetry without having an exact form of music， but Langston Hughes writes many many poems with exactly the form of blues. Nobody has ever been doing that before， and so from that moment on， jazz and blues have probably been the most frequent musical influence in African-American poetry， and maybe in American poetry as a whole. Now there’s a lot of African-American poetry that references other kinds of music too. For example， these days， there’s a lot of hip-hop in African-American poetry， and there’s no jazz musician now who has the kind of cultural presence and authorities as of Miles Davis and John Coltrane again， probably because jazz is somewhat marginalized in America now and rock and roll and hip-hop became a really bigger thing than jazz； jazz is still there but it’s not something that everybody listens to all the time like it did in the 40s and 30s， so you do see increasingly other kinds of music that have an influence. Spoken word poetry， for example. The performers’ spoken literacy is very influenced by hip-hop. When you go see these spoken word poets， they’ll often even make the same gestures as the hip-hop DJs and Mcs. If you go to a rap show， and watch the rapper， and then go to one of these spoken word performances， events， they will be making the same movements and same gestures and so forth. So other forms of music have always been part of black poetry， and new forms have come to more prominence within poetry， but in a long run， range from 1920， it’s been almost 100 years now. The jazz is the most frequently influential form of music in African-American poetry. That’s probably because it’s the most invented of this business. Again African-Americans created Spirituals， Gospels， Blues， Ragtime， jazz； these are all creations of African-American music， but jazz is the most highly evolved， most complex， most endlessly creative， so even though jazz is not as important in American society now as it used to be， there are still new jazz artists creating entirely new ways of written music. Zhang： In fine discussion of Amiri Baraka and the little-known Harold Carrington， your concern is to draw attention to “poets whose works interrogate what literary society conceives to be blackness， what languages and what forms are critically associated with constructions of cultural blackness.” Is this about racial discrimination or the identity of African-American culture？ Could you elaborate on this a little bit？
Nielsen： Every black poet has to respond to our racialist here one way or another， even though they do not do it overtly. So for example， there was this poet named William Stanley Braithwaite in the early part of the 20th century. None of the poems he wrote ever said anything about race. He was a very influential poetry editor； every year he put up this anthology of magazine verse； that was the best poems from all the magazines. And he had a weekly column in the Boston newspapers where he reviews books of poetry. Many people reading his work didn’t even know he was a black poet， but in his life as a poet he had to contend with discrimination. For example， he did not ever get a job at a white university. He wound up later in his life teaching at Atlantic University， which is a historically black college. So even a poet， who seems to never write about race， still as a poet， he has to contend with it. The majority of African-American poets do write about this subject， because it’s the central part of their life. Now when we’re talking about racial identity， nobody knows what we are talking about， believe me， but what do all， almost all black poets have in common？ They are in common being seen as black by the rest of the country. Black people in America， on the one hand， know how they are seen by white Americans， but they also know the actual realities， their daily life， and their thoughts that intervene， and there is a tension between those two things. So， every black poetic， with one or two exceptions， will write about that in one way or another at sometime. This is just part of your being. And not doing that will be sort of like someone who never wrote a poem about love. Nobody has to write love poems all the time， they probably write very good love poems， but whoever heard of a poet who never wrote about love. Ralph Ellison once said that race is the best metaphor for the human condition. If you are an American， white or black， how can you not write about this？ Now many white poets write very stupid things but there are some who write very carefully and thoughtfully and there are some white novelists who did some very important works about race. It’s such a central part of our culture and society in America that it would be very strange if you didn’t write about it. So questions of race and society will always…as long as we have black people and white people， it’s always been there in the world. And I’ve said even though we know race doesn’t really exist biologically， it’ll probably still be an issue in America as long as it is important to white people to think of themselves as not being black people. Until that changes. Zhang： As you are both a critic and a poet， how do you see your role of being a poet？ I mean being a poet， you should pay attention to what the critics say about your poetry， while at the same time you yourself is a critic. Would you interrogate your works from the perspective of a critic？
Nielsen： Earlier in the 20th century， there was a dominant mode of literary criticism； we’ll just call it the new criticism. I know here in China， there was a kind of poetry in the last 30 years； they’re just called new poetry. There was this new criticism， more or less the criticism of T. S. Eliot， his way of thinking about poetry. And when that was the dominant way of thinking about literary criticism in the America Universities， probably the dominant character in the English department was the poet Critic. People like Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren， who were poets and wrote this kind of new critical criticism. That began to die out in the late 1970s； there’s a new kind of criticism that came into force like post-structuralism， reconstruction， multi-cultural theory， and so forth. And overtime， poetry began to become kind of marginalized within the American university； so in most American universities in the English department， the people who are teaching literature and literary criticism might be the only person working on poetry in the entire department. Now this happened to be the same time period when creative writing became a big force in American universities. So In many colleges and universities， especially the smaller ones， the courses about poetry were all talks about creative writings. Not every creative writer is a good critic. Today in the US， there are at least 200 really good poet critics， who are publishing interesting poetry and writing really good criticism； most of them are not teaching writing courses， most of them are teaching literature courses. I was never hired in a poetry job， just as I was never hired in an African-American literature job. Those of us who are poets first， but then who get PHD， and do literary criticism. I think we have a different sensibility in our understanding of the language and structure than someone who’s not a poet. It’s not always true. The same way， you can be a great art critic even if you cannot paint， you can be a great music critic even if you cannot play any musical instrument， but you do have to have a deep understanding of the materials of the art form. Because poets are working with those materials all the time， they sort of have a head start over some other critics. On the other hand in my own career， because most of my work， since about 1997， has been about African-American literature， I’ve never had the problem with people applying my criticism to my poetry， because they never encourage them to do that. They could. But because I was writing black poets， they don’t think of using my criticism against my own poetry， whereas if I just wrote about the major white poets， someone might say while he says this in his criticism， and then in his poetry he does that. No one does that to me， because they don’t see the connection， but there is a connection. Amiri Baraka is probably the most influential poet on my work， ever. The first book of poetry I even bought was by LeRoi Jones. There are lots of other influences too， but he was sort of my gateway into the avant-garde poetry of the 20th century. So again， I think not only is it possible to be a great literary critic even though you aren’t a poet yourself， and I know several who are great critics who are poets， I do think those of us who are poets， we look at slightly different questions from the ones who aren’t poets； we’re probably closer to philosopher’s write about literature in that philosophers are always thinking about the nature of life in a way very similar to what a poet thinks about the nature of life. And language is the key in all of that — thinking about language， how does language work， how do we create meaning， how do we change meaning， how does language make us the people we are， those are the questions philosophers and poets both think about all the time. Zhang： Which role do you think you are more comfortable with？
Nielsen： It’s all the same to me， I mean I do them differently， but to me， it’s alrighty. Sometimes I write poems， sometimes I write criticism， but the way I go about it is different. I can write poetry anywhere； I’ve been sitting at this very table， before my notebook and start writing a poem， I cannot do that with criticism. With criticism I’ll have to have all my materials lined up， I’ll have to have my notes， my books； I have to sit at the table， my computer starts typing. Poetry I can write on my little notebook， I can write above my telephone， it’s very different， but it’s all continuing； it’s just two different sizes of the same activity. Because when I’m writing criticism， I want my criticism to be good writing. But with Black Chant， you know when you’re getting ready to publish a book， they send it to a copy editor， to make sure you don’t have quotation， citation…to make sure you don’t have incomplete sentences， but I’m never forgetting this， the copy editor who worked on Black Chant； he found a few places where I forgot a period or something； he said that he really enjoyed working on this book because of the writing. That meant more to me than almost any book review of that book because he noticed that writing itself was trying to do something in that book. And as a critic， I think that’s important. I’ve always wanted the writing itself to be interesting， not just the subject matter. The poetry is the most important part， but I’m best known for criticism， partly because poetry is so marginalized in the US.
Zhang： Well， I have to say you have been doing an excellent job both as a critic and a poet. Speaking of what you just mentioned about poetry being marginalized in the US， I’m sorry to tell you that it’s also marginalized here in China. Hopefully with your inspirational lectures on poetry upon your future visits， more and more people will come along and appreciate the beauty of poetry. That’s all for my interview. Thanks for your time， Professor. I hope you enjoyed your short stay here in CCNU.
References
Nielsen， A. Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism [M]. Cambridge： Cambridge UP， 1997.
Kun， J. Meltzer mania [OL]. http：//www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/music/ 00/03/23/FREQUENCIES.html （accessed 11/06/2015）
Lazer， H. Review： American Poetry： Accounts of the Present and the Recent Past [J]. Contemporary Literature， 1998，（3）： 475-504. Mullen， H. The Cracks between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be [M]. Alabama： TUOAP， 2012.
Thomas， L. Reviewed Work： Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism by Aldon Lynn Nielsen [J]. African American Review， 2000，（1）： 157-159.
Pennsylvania State University. Professional Biography of Aldon Lynn Nielsen [OL]. http：//english.la.psu.edu/faculty-staff/aln10 （accessed 13/05/2015）
Raussert， W. Reviewed Work： Black Chant： Languages of African-American Postmodernism by Aldon Lynn Nielsen [J]. American Studies， 1999 ，（4）： 605-608.
The University of Alabama Press. A Brief Introduction to What I say： Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America [OL]. http：//www.uapress.ua.edu/product/978-0-8173-8800-3-What-I-Say，6090.aspx？skuid=3006 （accessed 10/06/2015）
An Interview with Professor Aldon Lynn Nielsen
ZHANG Le & Aldon Lynn NIELSEN
（School of Foreign Languages， Central China Normal University， Wuhan 430079；
College of the Liberal Arts， Pennsylvania State University， University Park 16802）
Abstract： This interview bears witness to Professor Nielsen’s efforts to reassess and remap the history of African American poetry by introducing the neglected African American poets to the contemporary readers. As an extremely knowledgeable literary critic and a poet， Professor Nielsen has a profound awareness of the issues of African-American poetry and poetics， and he makes thought-provoking remarks on black experimental poetry， the African American avant-gardes， African American oral tradition， jazz and black literature， black theory and criticism， and theories of race and ethnicity.
Key words： African American poetry； avant-gardes； oral tradition， jazz and literature
作者简介：张乐，男，华中师范大学外国语学院讲师、在读博士，2010-2011年美国乔治亚南方大学访问学者。主要从事社会语言学和二语习得研究；
阿尔登·林·尼尔森，男，博士，美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学人文学院教授。主要从事诗歌创作和非裔诗歌研究。
通讯地址：湖北省武汉市珞喻路152号华中师范大学外国语学院，邮编430079
E-mail：clark_cheung@163.com
（责任编辑：刘芳）