“Norman Rockwell and Me” is an early chapter in a verse memoir about my ‘Fifties/’Sixties youth. I have always been a narrative poet; the narrative poems in the epic trilogy I wrote in my early career, (Iwilla/Soil, Iwilla/Scourge, Iwilla/Rise), took me on a twenty-year journey into the unknown. Along the way I researched the world’s sacred literature, legends and folklore; I studied the visual art inspired by these ancient stories. Out of this meandering exploration came a distillation of metaphors and symbols, people and events, that fit my understanding of the American experience as an indigenous Black woman.
Memoir is a different genre of story-telling from the epic. Thus far, the writing process of my verse memoir has been entirely different from that of the earlier work.
First, I already know my main character and the cluster of supporting personalities I have encountered in life. The task is not one of searching or identifying, but rather of digging more deeply, questioning, sometimes ditching completely my established interpretation of a person’s significance.
Second, I don’t have to travel far (figuratively) beyond my own birthplace for the landscape of the pivotal events I want to memorialize. As a memoirist, I am lucky that I have been able to return to my hometown and live in the last dwelling of my youth. When I walk out my front door, I can see my own past in streets, parks, and buildings. Much has changed (for better and for worse); this dynamics of memory and change is such a life-force!
Third, not only the landscape, but also personal family items (both trivial and momentous) surround my daily routine. A table lamp (non-functional, in need of rewiring) from my parents’ first apartment can trigger a story as profound as my high school yearbook. Such visual triggers are the primary wellsprings of my memoir.
Fourth, I have told and retold the events in “Norman Rockwell and Me” for a lifetime. To myself. I have never shared them with anyone else except my own child. Once or twice. Why did I do this? Well, for one thing, I did not want to forget—not the people or the events. I still remember the last name (beginning with a Z) of that White classmate. My family moved away after two years and I never saw that neighborhood or projects or parochial school or anybody there again. Also, I knew that my presence in that predominantly White Catholic school was significant. My mother had told me so at the time. It was the beginning of a lifetime of being “the first” or “the only” or “one of a handful” of Blacks in an academic, residential, religious, or even professional situation. Always without fanfare. Without cameras and reporters. Long before new laws changed policies, perspectives and customs.
Finally, the artist Norman Rockwell was not unknown to me as a child. Visual art entered my parents’ household mostly as newspaper and magazine illustration. Two major exceptions were the family bible (The Marian Year Bible) with an inset of High Renaissance/Baroque masterpieces in full color and a set of encyclopedias with a section on Western Art that I poured over again and again and again…