Lower East Side Coda - the impact of the Lower East Side, New York, experience - Lower East Side Retrospective

African American Review, Winter, 1993 by Tom Dent

When Norma Rogers first mentioned the idea of a reunion of sixties Lower East Side artists and former Umbra Writers Workshop members, I responded enthusiastically, although I never thought she would be able to pull it off. After thirty years we had dispersed to the four comers of the nation, and though we had seen each other individually from time to time, and had often discussed a reunion, such a project had been confined to discussion only.

It is therefore almost solely due to Norma's energy, vision, and commitment (there was hardly any funding) that the reunion occurred in November of 1991, that so many of us were able to return, and that the forums at the Henry Street Settlement Center were so spiritually rewarding. I would not have believed, given our lifestyles at the time, that any one of us would make it past the age of 35; so I was amazed that everyone seemed to have survived and, in fact, prospered and was looking good. But then, that might be because, as Brenda Walcott, who spoke so beautifully at the conference, once confided to me, "Anyone who could survive the impassioned and withering criticism in that workshop could survive anything later short of murder. It took courage to read one poem."

The early sixties was a special, impassioned period in history. I don't believe that it will be repeated. It was a time when we, like many other aspiring black artists, emigrated from various sections of the country to New York, which was considered a mecca, and then to the Lower East Side, which had cheap rents and was an amazingly varied and vibrant community. It was there that our lives intersected in the quest to grow as artists. For us, from different backgrounds and histories, it was a time of intense companionship and sharing which provided us with a sense of "we-ness" that tempered the "I-ness" prevalent in so much of American literature and art.

Certainly this was true in my case--a Southern boy fleeing the restrictions of my society. I wonder how I would have arrived at whatever sense of balance I now possess had we not created Umbra, and shared the Lower East Side experience. I think that experience taught us an appreciation for the diversity of voices within our "we-ness" as a way of absorbing and interpreting the times, which were deeply imbued with the struggle for diasporan and anti-colonial political liberation, and the emerging sense of black cultural identity. Each of us was challenged, I believe, to discover his or her own way of rendering and transforming those dominant ideas through our work, according to our own personal visions. This respect for diversity was profoundly influenced by the life around us on the Lower East Side--at that time a magnificent multiethnic and multicultural neighborhood. We were surrounded by the old left, the new music, experimental theater and the beginnings of black theater, experimental visual artists and filmmakers. It was a time of poetry readings in coffee shops, meetings at our favorite bars, which we transformed, and a sharing of hopes and dreams with others like us who were at the ascent of their careers as major artists. In that neighborhood of Eastern European immigrants, Puerto Ricans, Jews, and blacks--each with their own groceries, bakeries, shops, and hangouts--we struggled to forge our own identity. It was only later, I have come to understand, that we could fully appreciate that time and place, after we had left and dispersed once again to wherever our lives took us. As was pointed out so often on that November weekend in 1991, each of us sought to take the essentials of our LES experience with us.

I feel proud that so many of our group of artists have remained true to themselves and their visions despite the changes of the intervening thirty years "As for success," Calvin Hicks remarked, "I have not seen it." But then success was never quite our objective anyway--at least not in the traditional sense of money or fame.

Thanks, Norma, for those two days of reflection and remembrance, making it possible for us to view ourselves decades later. Memories of those days will remain with me as long I'm here on this earth.

Tom Dent, one of the founding members of Umbra, now resides in his native New Orleans. His books of poetry include Magnolia Street (1976) and Blue Lights and River Songs (1982).