I am of the Literary Hoodoo school of Afroam literature.


Mystically inclined writers who have attempted to manifest hoodoo, the indigenous African American spiritual tradition, through their works and lives.

It was Chesnutt with The Conjure Woman first start systematically using hoodoo as literary ground, Zora Neale that most facilitated hoodoo's evolution from a folk tradition to a literary one and Ishmael Reed transformed hoodoo from a magical system to a functioning 20th Century afrospiritual ideology.

"Just because you cant see d stones dont mean im not building"
ishmael reed: dragons blood

on you i said to the enemies of the soul
ishmael reed: conjure
 

Literary hoodoo comes out of the griotic and hoodoo tropes in African American literature.

Literature as conjuration. The narrative as spell, the artist as shaman. Every book a spell, every draft a divination.

To state something so well that it makes it so. Nommo: the power of words to forge reality. As I define so shall it be.
 
Mystically inclined black writers and intellectuals found affinity for hoodoo not only because it allows us to utilize a magical/metaphysical tradition buried deep in the black psyche and worldview but because it also allows us to perform the function of tribal shamain a contemporary manifestation.

 

Its most revered figures have all been culturally engaged. Creating the visions without which the people shall perish and serving in its mythic heart its ageold griotic function of keeping the culture alive and viable

 
 

Marcus Garvey was highly influenced by Ethiopia Unbound by Casely Hayford, from which he took, among others, the phrase, One God! One Aim! One Destiny! In turn Marcus Garvey influenced thousands and thousands of blackfolk, thereby influencing the historical dynamics of his times and our destiny for the foreseeable future.

This happens to some degree everytime a reader (or even better another artist/intellectual) is touched by your work. Literature opens minds and passes on ideas.
Literature allows folk to see themselves and their lives in a new perspective and opens audiences to new possibilities. What Julie Dash calls "rupturing their reality."
 

Consciously griotic, AfricanAmerican literature is passionately concerned with cultural custodianship.

As the voice of a culture that has since its inception felt itself under mortal siege, African American literature is fundamentally shamanistic and vitally concerned with communal health and empowerment.

Those of us who consider ourselves trained cultural custodians and masters of Nommo - a Dogon dogstar word - the ability to use the magic of words to forge reality - have consciously decided to contribute our lifeworks to the viability of that culture and to defend it against those who would destroy or cripple it. Within or without.

ideological orchestrators - artists and intellectuals who enlist themselves in the ideological wars.

an ongoing struggle amongst the players of different systems and cultures for dominance over the way the world thinks and the future of the humanrace. master game players who count their game in generations, centuries and eras

historical tools of ideological orchestration: religion, science, ideas, education, literature art and magic;
evolving ideological technology: mass media, advertising, public relations, information science and the internet.

ideological orchestration requires mastery of the longgame:

you do your communitny service/activism because you always do what you can
but it wont cause fundamental change in the human condition

only real shot at causing fundamental change is through your work

one cares for the tribal soul by monitoring it through its cultural products, contributing what it needs to balance out its weaknesses and emphasize its strengths, minimizing the dysfunctional and emphasizing the transformational

the battles over gangster rap and mercenary literature are battles for the control of our cultural traits.
our destiny. our fa

as an artist (visionary) you use your craft (words, ideas, media, etc) to create a vision
that so excites the human imagination that folk try to live its principles in the realworld,.

so that, no matter how negligibly, reality adjusts itself to your vision

destinywork

"The island got spit out from the Mouth of God, and when it fell to the earth it brought along an army of stars. He tried to reach down and scoop them back up, and found Himself shaking hands with the greatest conjure woman on earth. 'Leave 'em here Lord,' she said, 'I aint got nothing but these poor black hands to guide my people, but I can lead on with light.'"

gloria naylor: mama day

afroam literature is working literature. it is conjurational lit and at its best visionary.

as such it continues to address the critical issues that concern us as artists and as a people. mix in the commercialization and canonization of african american literature and bring to a boil.

extract the saacred text: a cultural template: evolutionary inclination shaped by significant works of art and thought

 

periods of political ferment have been accompanied by literary movements

the harlem renaissance was the voice of the new negro and the great migration which transformed a rural peasantry to an urban 20th century people.

The black arts/aesthetic movement was the voice of the civil rights movement and black power

which turned away from addressing white audiences to addressing black audiences and concerns - a crossroads moment
The judgement of any literary movement is the quality of the works produced by it. The issues raised pertinent to its generations. The ideological instruments forged to finesse its challenges. Its influence on future literary work. Its legacy.  
O life!, said the druidic James Joyce, "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."
 

I aspire to works so powerful that I cannot be ignored

immortality

There are times - fleeting moments that you are aware of yourself as historical, godforce, a focal point of reality and illusion, a nexus of generational possibility, conjuring reality into being through the sheer force of your Will your Work and your Game.
"May the best church win, shake hands now and come out conjuring." ishmael reed: conjure
  In a 1973 New York Times Book Review of Sula, the reviewer call herself warning Toni not to be too colored, said if Toni doesnt restrict herself to colored topics she might make something of herself one day. That she might then "transcend that early and unintentionally limiting classification 'black woman writer'."  
Well, I guess Toni showed them. African American culture has been one of the most influential in the world. We put the soul in the mix. Witness the Struggle. Witness the HipHop Nation.
narrative as spell

"She really do some powerful healing, though. And she ain't a root doctor neither. She don't need no root to heal. Some people say that that is a superior form of healing when you don't need no root to heal. When you just healing people by knowing that they is healed." gayle jones: the healing
every book a spell, every draft a divination
I consequently speculate the attempt to develop a uniquely African American literary text will be one of the definitive components of 21st century literature and thought. A sacred text and Text of our ongoing struggle to survive and prosper as a people and a culture. Our Destiny. Our Fa.
 
"I been to the crossroads and aint no devil down there." keb mo: henry