The Still Waters Writers’ Workshop, The Backstory
Los Angeles is seldom celebrated for its storied past when mentioning the
history of its Black arts and cultural landscape.
The Central Avenue jazz and arts scene, which birthed the Los Angeles renaissance, was the hallmark of jazz in America for a span of over 50 years. From 1900–1955, artists, musicians, and poets flourished in the bustling Black-owned businesses of Central Avenue. This striking creative energy vibrated across the nation, becoming the target of many covert operations designed to destroy, disconnect, and cause dissension in the Black community. In turn, our ancestors, fathers, and mothers protected, fought and gave their lives to be treated as human beings. These recurrent combative encounters gave birth to the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s era.
In 1965, blatant racism, inadequate jobs, hospitals, housing, and schools
were at an all-time high in Los Angeles. The community of Watts became
a ticking time bomb that finally exploded on August 11th , 1965, into what the media commonly referred to as the Watts Riots. However, a rebellion,
revolt, or uprising is a more accurate description. When the smoke
cleared, many groups and programs were implemented in and around
Watts to pacify the uproar from the community.
One collective in particular that hit the ground running into prominence was the critically acclaimed 1965 Watts Writers’ Workshop, founded by the academy award-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg. This workshop produced such great poets as OJenke, Harry Dolan, Johnie Scott, Eric Priestly, Odie Hawkins, The Watts Prophets: Amde Hamilton, Otis O’Solomon and Richard Dedeaux. Quincy Troupe and Kamau Daaood to name a few. The Watts Writers’ Workshop legacy has endured, multiplied, and launched a multitude of great writing careers.
Twenty four years later, in 1989, poet Kamau Daaood and master drummer Billy Higgins co-founded The World-Stage in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.
The World-Stage offered a drumming and writers’ workshop, the Anansi
Writers’ Workshop. The World-Stage has commenced the vocation of many prolific writers as well. Peter J. Harris, Shonda Buccanan, D-Knowledge, V-Kali, Pam Ward, Ruth Forman, Dee Black, Michael Datcher, El Rivera and Conney Williams to name a few, all came of age at The World-Stage Anansi Writers’ Workshop.
In 2013, exactly twenty four years after the famous World-Stage was birthed, and forty eight years following the illustrious, Watts Writers’
Workshop, The Still Waters Writers’ Workshop was preparing to release an
anthology aptly named Sounds from the Waters (Synchronized Inhales and Exhales)
How does this thread connect?” one might ask. Well, I am a Watts native son that first became aware of The Watts Writers’ Workshop as a student at Grape St. Elementary School, in Watts, CA. The workshop had already ceased operation for decades. However, I grew up hearing all the stories about the Watts Revolt and the Watts Writers’ Workshop firsthand from my family. My uncle would play the Watts Prophets’ album Rappin’ Black in a White World. Right then, I knew without apprehension that this literary inheritance was left for future generations to partake in, learn from, and be inspired to create, and I was certainly inspired.
Years later, I began to produce an event called Still Waters, mixing live music, art, and spoken word into a smash-hit production, hosted by Queen Socks, my wife. We had begun featuring all of the poets that we admired, elders and peers alike. The workshop was then created five years into the Still Waters Production as a way to help the many artists that had asked to feature at Still Waters get prepared to present on a large stage.The workshop became a huge success; writers of all backgrounds began to stop by and share their work. We began to notice how many “poets” did not know the history of the Black Los Angeles poetry scene, and with the success of Still Waters we felt it was our charge to bring this awareness to up and coming and veteran poets.
Thus, on Friday, February 24th , 2012, the same day of the Academy Awards, we honored Ras Poet Ojenke, and all the members of the 1965 Watts
Writers’ Workshop, at Still Waters, for their infinite contributions to past, present, and future writers. Also that night, The Watts Prophets and Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets were our featured guest performers; it was truly an ostentatious evening. Elders, youth, and peers came out in their Sunday’s best to celebrate this grand event.
Motivated by that occasion, five months later in July of 2012, we honored Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez, at Still Waters, with lifetime achievement awards. This, again, was a time to introduce up and coming poets to legends from the East Coast that have spent their lives producing, sharing, and inspiring the best out of our people. It was another blockbuster night. We wanted to carry this momentum forward into our next production, and that’s exactly what happened on February 24 th , 2013. Again, on Oscar night, we had our own awards presentation by honoring the legendary poet and co-founder of the World-Stage,
Kamau Daaood, with another Still Waters Lifetime Achievement Award, at Still Waters, while also celebrating
the 28th anniversary re-release of Life Is a Saxophone, filmed by the accredited S. Pearl Sharp and starring Kamau Daaood. These three splendid events paid homage to many of the poets, writers, and storytellers
that we felt paved the way for our collective. Shortly thereafter, we decided to start bringing in special guests to the
workshop to acquaint our group with other poets and writers.
The Workshop’s first special guest was international spoken-word artist Taalam Acey, generally recognized for being the modern day god-father of spoken-word. That day, Taalam Acey, Jaha Zainabu, Deana Verse, Spencer Allen and a few other seasoned poets watched as we began this journey of committing to a vision to grow, share, and become better individually and collectively. Since, we have welcomed many special guests to the Still Waters Writers’ Workshop, all having had a lasting impact on our group.
We began each workshop with a“psychobabble.” This was the time that you “embraced your crazy.” Topics ranging from spirituality, religion, bus stories, childcare, world events, and self-reflection were discussed. After, we would collectively recite an artist affirmation to affirm we
are all artists that are surrendering to creativity. Queen Socks and I participated in all factions of the workshop; we did not want to be called teachers, rather facilitators that grew side by side with the group. This allowed attendees to give us feedback and suggestions as we continued to promote balance, individuality, and share historical facts regarding writing and expression. Reading was encouraged most of all in the workshop. We felt if you did not read other writers, poets, and story tellers, you were doing the art a major disservice.
The workshop has had a steady rotation of writers from all disciplines since
its conception. Screenwriters, poets, emcees, grant writers, novelists,
songwriters, and everyday journal scribers all committed to growth by
attending every week and sharing thoughts, ideas, and fears through
writing. We have learned so much from this whole experience and are
looking forward to continuing to embrace escalation through originality and
awareness.
In hindsight, we did not know what was being shaped; we only recognized
there was a void that needed to be filled. We also knew that when
something is absent in your life, it will be your thoughts, words, and actions
that will fill these empty spaces, giving birth to something greater than you
could have ever imagined. So we began walking into the unknown, wide-
eyed and bushy-tailed, embarking on an endless journey one step at a
time.
Still Waters Writers’ Workshop, Day 1
The dimly lit ceiling fans spun shadows projecting silhouettes of seasoned and beginning poets on freshly painted walls. No stage, just a makeshift space where a throw rug and a microphone made it clear that the floor was yours. Scattered pieces of Black art were hung throughout this artistic space resembling something out of the early 1960s era,
when gatherings and think tanks were the norm and a good word, poem, instrument, song, speech, and breath rose a group up to a higher awareness.
It was early January 2011, and we had invited some of our artist friends to
our creativity workshop. We had been presenting this workshop in
universities, grade schools, and private locations; nevertheless, we felt it
was time to offer it to the community for free. Yes, free!
Vibrations was the perfect place, an artistic sanctuary that we had opened in November of 2010, offering a vast array of flavorful healing teas, a cultural study Truth-Brary with over 5,000 books, and a holistic line of natural hair and skin care products called Subtle Tiyes, aimed to beautify from the inside out. Diversifying effortlessly was the driving force behind the workshop. How can we mature independently in our art while collectively sprouting a tree of synchronicity? Simple, we thought; just start planting seeds and watering the garden. So that’s what we did when birthing the Still Waters Writers’ Workshop. We planted the seed and agreed to water it every Sunday evening at Vibrations.
We intended for the workshop to hone the crafts of the attendees, birthing a safe, honest environment that warranted growth, confidence, and essential feedback on the gift of choice. In this case, the choice was poetry. The vision was to preserve an accurate account of stories, events, and creative
writing exercises.
The workshop was named after the Still Waters production that we had been producing since 2007. The production began as a game and open expression night. Like minds would congregate to play cards, dominoes, Connect Four, Uno, etc. Ironically, poets began to stop by and bless the mic, creating a buzz for the up and
coming week. In turn, Still Waters grew from a once-a-week open mic to a once-a-month featured presentation, with the likes of Sonia Sanchez, Kamau Daaood, Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets & The Watts Prophets all coming to grace our stage, while still allowing “young hopefuls” the chance to express themselves as well.
The community has endorsed Still Waters and Vibrations wholeheartedly.
We suppose it’s because we wanted them to be centered in love. All are
welcomed. An elder shared with us one day after an event, “Still
Waters is a lifesaver.” She went on to say, “I was just about ready to give
up, and then I was invited to Still Waters.” With a lump in my throat, I
humbly accepted her sentiment.
The Still Waters Writers’ Workshop has become an emergency room of sorts, where people from all walks of life have come to get healed and rejuvenated, enabling them to go out and deal with the ups and downs of the world. We are grateful for this whole experience. Moving instantly on inspired thought has connected this puzzle called life into a masterpiece reflecting our souls’ print. The Still Waters Writers’ Workshop is an army of writers, writing misfortunes into fortunes, tipping the scales in our favor with candid sentiments expressed by Tajedis, griots, poets, storytellers, wordsmiths, emcees, rappers, slick talkers, and cappers. This ancient, sacred bequest has brought dynasties, millenniums, and centuries of us together to sip from this overflowing ocean of resourcefulness. Respect for this thread has
kept us humble, focused, and striving to represent this art form with pure
intentions.
Sounds from the Waters is our offering to this blessed cord, a compilation of creative spirits connecting through love, art, and elevation, navigating life’s currents one word at a time, in quest of knowledge, augmentation, and truth, which is a pathless conduit to self-wakefulness. “You are who you’ve been waiting for” has been my mantra, encouraging all writers to wait no longer and move into their greatness.
This manuscript gives voices to the sounds of water and the frequencies of vibrations. We craft movement in motion portals that spin open from our
pens’ exactness. The stroke of our brush across the canvas of being creates colorful stories, poems, and experiences splashed into beautiful
works of art that are shared throughout the Diaspora.
Our collective is an antenna, communicating with the cosmos in this space named Vibrations, that once housed a dry cleaners in the seventies, a hair salon in the eighties, someone’s home in the 90s, and what we refer to now as a garden, a child, that has taken a village to raise. This is our shrine, mass,
oasis, temple, sanctuary, refuge, tribe, village, portico, power surge, retreat,
connection, nile, Shabaka Stone, pyramid, well, and unity cup where we
drink together and compose egoless testimonies on a consecrated scroll that will be discovered thousands of years from this day, decoded, translated, and shared to show a new society how we loved, lived, and shared (excerpt from: Sounds From the Waters — A Poetry Anthology).
Oshea Kwa Luja (Mr.Food4Thought)
To register for our up and coming workshops online — please visit: www.StillWatersEvents.com
