Hypertext Magazine asked Rashaun J. Allen, author of The Blues Cry for a Revolution, “how did you come up with the name and what inspired you to write The Blues Cry for a Revolution?”
The Blues Cry For A Revolution was initially called Real Art Protest, then Brevity of a Black Boy. But those names dissolved when it grew in length and depth. Still, there isn’t a aha moment for when it was renamed. Just like when I started writing it I didn’t know what the poems would be about except speaking directly to black and brown lives.
The inspiration came from everywhere from workshops, museums, conversations and reimagined experiences surrounding black folk in the United States. I wanted to showcase multiple perspectives—’cause there is diversity in blackness, no, African-Americanness. That’s how the poems were divided into three sections: For The Unknown Victims, For Those Who Watch and For Those Who Resist.
There isn’t a straight line of suffering, surviving, or striving. Often all three are happening concurrently and in close proximity. “Brevity of A Black Boy” is the first poem and sets the tone for the collection by showing how the black body is always under scrutiny, “Black mind—think carefully / you expect life, liberty and Justice?”
“Prose to the Silent Conscious Man” is the lead poem in For Those Who Watch. It had to be. The poem speaks to too many people who are aware of the trying circumstances of others but sort of minds their own business. “You are like Wi-Fi / When I want to connect, you are not in service for black lives. / (A survival tactic, I’m sure.)” And finally, “Young Radical Mind,” a poem in For Those Who Resist, reimagines what’s possible in the future with lines such as “Jails are not pipelines / but life lines to help the incarcerated.”
The Blues Cry For A Revolution is my attempt to make sense of my everyday reality and turn it into a beacon of hope. Or more so a message that what black boys and men—black folk and poor people in general are experiencing is happening. The United States, my country and home, is starkly different in urban cities than rural communities and suburbs and in some instances, it is easy to pretend that the suffering is less than what’s projected on television and somehow not a national emergency.
My hope is that the reader is pushed, challenged, no, urged to think about his or her role in society. Am I doing enough? How can I bring forth the change I want in my community? Unfortunately, there are times we all are just conscious bystanders to the suffering of others—some from mental exhaustion from personal battles; others too caught up bringing light to a particular grievance without seeing how it all intersects. Still, there are those who do resist and are active even if not an activist marching in the street. There are many ways to bring forth change. If a reader is moved to question their place in America and re-imagine how to make it less oppressive for black bodies then I’ve done my job as an artist to bring awareness reflecting reality back to the people.
Rashaun J. Allen is a writer, entrepreneur, poet, professor, and a Fulbright recipient. A past Vermont Studio Center and Arts Letters & Numbers resident whose two poetry chapbooks: A Walk Through Brooklyn and In The Moment became Amazon Kindle Best Sellers. He has been nominated for Sundress Publication’s 2018 Best of the Net Anthology in Creative Non-Fiction and was a 2017 Steinberg Essay Contest Finalist in Fourth Genre. You can visit his website rashaunjallen.com for more of his work.