Mary E. Weems. Public Education and Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth

African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Meiko Negishi, Anastasia Elder

Mary E. Weems. Public Education and Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. 125 pp. $24.95.

Public Education and Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth is an "auto/ethnographic, sacred performance text" that invites readers to critique the public education system. It posits that education should promote the artistic alongside the scholarly, and that one's intellect (thinking) and imagination (creativity) are always connected. Through various literary forms, Weems simultaneously explains and models her vision for public education. Her writings utilize many forms of expression (expository, plays, poetry) to convey a variety of feelings, ideas, and situations regarding her own journey through public education, and what she envisions it could and should be.

The book explains an ideal vision and follows it up with powerful portrayals of Weems's own experiences that helped to shape her thinking. In this way, the text serves as a compelling example of self-expression, and demonstrates the kinds of products one could expect if public education promoted imagination-intellect. Weems sees the school as an important agent that can produce activists to challenge social problems, in particular, those surrounding issues of race and ethnicity.

Her writing follows in the footsteps of a Harlem Renaissance writer such as Zora Neale Hurston and a Chicago Renaissance writer such as Richard Wright. Weems's writing is also inspired by the accomplishments of artistic African American women, such as Toni Morrison and Anna Deveare Smith; and is influenced by multicultural, educational theorists such as Paulo Friere and Maxine Greene. Each chapter contains unique poems, plays, and essays that invite the reader to envision a more ideal educational system and to confront racism.

Chapter one, "Utopia: Critical Imagination-Intellect as a Pedagogical Focus," describes ideal education. Weems proposes that teaching environments be loving and respectful of students from diverse backgrounds to foster each student's imagination-intellect. She proposes a curriculum that includes five areas critical for her educational utopia: art appreciation, oral expression, written expression, performance, and social consciousness. In this system, students' awareness of social injustice and diversity inspire them to be creative and thinking critically through various arts. In her school, "Classrooms are without walls.., and talking and movement while learning is encouraged--never punished ... the school has a nurturing environment of love, mutual respect, reciprocal learning, and sharing ... each eight-week period is marked by student performances.... There are three categories: Rhetorical Debate, Scientific Discovery, and Creative Performances grounded in literature, history, math, and any of the physical sciences."

In chapter two, "Transitions," the author brings the reader to the past through her poetry:

   The plantation divides like separate arms
   some hold the whip, trace his footsteps
   report the smell of freedom in the grass.

Images of slavery, suppression, and racism serve as grounding for the remainder of the text, and comment on the ever-present racism in US society.

Chapter three, "Why I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth," is autobiographical. This section describes her youth, family, community, and the experiences that contributed to the cultivation of her artistic gifts. The reader begins to understand her path to becoming an educator, poet, and activist. Weems grew up in an artistic family, but not an ideal family or community. She recalls, "We had plenty of problems: alcoholism, unemployment, my relationship with my mother was lousy during my adolescent years, and my father was not around to be a father to me, but my grandparents loved us...."

She further connects narratives of her experiences from kindergarten to high school to jobs to graduate school. She describes her personal evolution: how she came to enjoy poetry, her discovery and awareness of social injustice, and her developing self-confidence in her artistic and intellectual abilities. In school and at work, she faced institutionalized racism and sexism, but she also met people who encouraged her return to college and her degree in poetry. As it is often the case, the difficult situations challenged and strengthened her. Moreover, they led to the development of her bold, artistic inner voice.

"Dirt: An Autoethnographic Play," chapter four, consists of four scenes with a single character named Nuby, who is an African American woman in her 40s. In each scene, dirt is used as symbols for land (where one is from), path (where one is going), belongings (one's self), and potential (what one has inside). As an African American and as a woman, Nuby looked for "dirt" to find who she was and what she wanted in each stage of her life; when she found it, she nurtured it.

"Graffiti This! No Rembrandt in the Hood," is a play based on her own transformations in graduate school. The setting is an art class at a New York City college. The four main characters are Sandra (African American poet, 40s), Only White Milk (White female, 20s), Woman Professor (White woman, 40s), and Soon (Asian female student, 20s). Conflict arises in a graduate classroom over teaching art: Should one teach classic works like Rembrandt to inner city students who have not had much exposure to classical works of art? Can one assume that inner city children have not had such exposure? What constitutes art? The discussion over these issues of culture and art becomes an emotional one for Sandra, but she is cut off from expressing herself by the professor. She becomes frustrated and angry because her dissent in the classroom is seen as detrimental. Weems uses a personal story to criticize those who do not permit nor foster healthy exchanges of ideas and diverse voices.