HOST, CAROLINE MCCARTHY: This month, the City of Newark will elect its first ever Poet Laureate. Local poets from all over the city have applied for the role, and a selection committee will choose their top candidate to promote the literary arts to Newark residents. As Dana Binfet reports, Newark has long been a center of African American culture and activism.
NARRATOR, DANA BINFET: As far as writers go, Margie Johnson is something of a local celebrity in Newark. She began writing poetry at 8 years old and hasn’t stopped since.
MARGIE JOHNSON: I've written lots of poems about Newark.
BINFET: Johnson goes by the name Mia X. She’s an arts educator at Clinton Hill Community Action and she’s a finalist for the role of Newark’s first poet laureate. If she gets the job her role would be writing poetry about the city.
JOHNSON: My Newark poem will say that Newark is beautiful. Newark is changing. Newark is now. Newark is forever. Newark is wonderful. Newark is beautiful.
BINFET: The city is a cultural hub known for its Black arts movement, and home to the country’s premier poetry festival but it hasn’t always been that way. Mia X was born and raised in Newark and knows that the city has had a difficult history which means its arts legacy can be easily overlooked.
JOHNSON: Just depends on which eyes you're looking out and you have to make sure that you clean those things out of your eyes.
BINFET: And the thing that often effects peoples vew of Newark, took place in the 1960’s. Samuel Graham Felson is a literary historian at the Newark Public Library.
SAMUEL GRAHAM FELSON: So unfortunately, Newark, you know, continues to be haunted by the history of what happened here in 1967. You know, a lot of folks today call it the Newark Rebellion. I think it's more popularly known outside of Newark as the Newark riots.
BINFET: In 1967 residents took to the streets in response to systemic racism, and police brutality. The national guard was called in, buildings were burned to the ground, and 26 people died. The city was shaken and has struggled to recover. The events shaped Newark today, including its art scene. The city’s Mayor, Ras Baraka, is a politician and a poet. Here he is reading one of his own poems at the state of the city address last Spring.
MAYOR RAS BARAKA: Just a kid from Clinton Avenue and 10th Street. Amiri and Amina’s son, an activist, a poet, a teacher with nothing in his hands but a rock and a slingshot.
BINFET: Here’s literary historian Samuel Felson again.
FELSON: Newark is not a huge city, but I would argue that it has a huge literary influence.
BINFET: And Newark is also a big part of pop culture, its the birthplace of Whitney Houston, Shaquille O’Neal and Queen Latifah.
FELSON: You know, so many writers of note come from the city. Steven Crane, you know, the Red Badge of Courage is from Newark. Paul Oster, who recently died, is from Newark. Allen Ginsberg is from Newark. Philip Roth, of course, is from Newark. This is just the city that, you know, I would say, punches way above its weight in terms of literature, a city of poets and fiction writers.
BINFET: There’s no word yet on who will be named Newark’s first poet laureate but Mia X is hoping it will be her. Here she is reading her poem, “Believe.”
JOHNSON: You gotta have something to believe in, or you'll waste away faster than ice, ice, ice.
BINFET: Dana Binfet, Columbia Radio News.
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