KINGSTON TIMES NEWSPAPER

One-woman crusade
Carolyn Baxter reaches out to Kingston street youth

by Crispin Kott

Carolyn Baxter is a force to be reckoned with. A multimedia artist and social activist in the truest sense, Baxter produced books of poetry, non-fiction and literature colored by urban sensibilities. She is a graphic designer and a spoken-word performer. She's also trying to turn Kingston around all by herself.

"Kingston is like Mayberry," said Baxter. "It prides itself on being a small town, but there's a volcano beneath the ground, bubbling."

Like many in the community, Baxter said reaching out to youth is the only solution to a city stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of crime. Baxter's personal history lends her a unique perspective on how best to approach kids in what she calls "the hip-hop community," a classification that isn't restricted to any particular race.

In "Platinum Dreams, Lead Reality," her new book of poetry and short stories, Baxter tells the tale of a young Caucasian man, whom she met while acting as a psychiatric nurse for a therapy group, in a poem called "Joe Suburbia."

"I was working in a place, and they had kids that had gotten in trouble," said Baxter, recalling the incident that inspired the poem. "There's lots of gang members there, and we got along because I speak their language. I'd spit rhymes with them and talk about beats. I see myself in them, and I want them to see themselves in me."

"There was one kid who really stuck out in my memory; he really looked like Opie, with red hair and green eyes," Baxter said. "All of a sudden this kid says, 'Well I don't want to stay here. I'm going to prison because I want to go to prison. And that's it, yo.'"

"I said 'Do you know what you are going to go through when you go there?" said Baxter. "Do you know what's going to happen? You are going to be sliced asshole to appetite, honey. You are going to be somebody's bitch and you are not going to make it out alive.'

I gave him everything I had, my culture, and they gave him their reality, and he was shocked. It was a good one-two punch. When I saw him after that, he was able to articulate certain things about himself. He wasn't hiding behind that facade anymore."

Baxter's own experience stemmed from growing up in New York City and finding herself in prison at a young age. Though she was inspired to write at the age of 14 by a friend's poet mother, Baxter said her time in a federal work camp in West Virginia helped her find her voice.

"There was so much racism down there," Baxter said. "I felt like Richard Pryor in a KKK camp. That's what brought it on. I had to have an outlet."

Baxter's first book, Prison Solitary and Other Free Government Services, was published in 1979 and, according to the author, led to years of speaking engagements and use of the text in colleges and universities to teach creative writing.

Though nearly 30 years have passed since the publication of her debut, Baxter is still using urban poetry and storytelling as a means to reach out to people who remind her most of herself.

Her new book includes poetic tributes to slain hip-hop icons like Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G., Proof and Jam Master Jay, as well as reality-based stories from the street like Chess and poems like ACE and The Photographer.

According to Baxter, the collected works in the volume are based around the tension and pressure of males in modern urban society. Baxter will be Performing her work at the MUDDY CUP CAFE Oct 16 th @ 8pm. Cafe from a Work in Progress. A One Woman show: ''Take the Bitter with the Street''.

But that's not all that Baxter has in the works. On Friday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m.,at the ''MUDDY CUP ''Cafe on Bway,In Kingston. Baxter will present the first in a series of films designed for the hip-hop communityPlanned. The "Urban Hip-Hop Cultural Series" are documentaries produced by HBO and National Geographic, including The Most Dangerous Gangs, The Road to Guantanamo and The 'N' Word.

"Once ain't going to get it," said Baxter. "This is a series. I put this together as a cultural thing."

Over the course of the proposed series, Baxter said she would like to integrate experts in the fields represented by each film. She would also like to help produce a short film of children aged 12-15 asking if they wanted to be in gangs.

"Half these people in this town have forgotten what it's like to be young," Baxter said. "These are their kids. They're not my kids. My kid's grown."

Baxter said relating to young people in an organic, relatable way is often the only way to get them to hear what you're trying to say.

"It's really the education and dialogue that's important," said Baxter. "No one's ever asked these kids what they want, and you can't ask them when they're dead."

Baxter so impressed the publishers of Downtown Los Angeles Magazine with her work recently that they asked her to pen a guest editorial. "Take the Bitter with the Street" will appear in the September issue of the magazine.

Even with interest coming from the other side of the country, Baxter said she's concentrating most of her efforts on young people in the local community.

"There's nothing for them to do, and no one is speaking about anything for them," Baxter said. "That pisses me off."

Baxter said it all boils down to the adults in the community being willing to take an active role in helping lead the way for the children.

"The black community doesn't seem to be involved with their kids," said Baxter. "Nobody else is going to fix this problem, so you better get up off your black asses and do something. I'm on the giving tip. If you're giving, we can work together."


For more information on Baxter's work, visit her site and blog at:
http://carolynbaxter.com
http://cornbreadgritsanpolitics.blogspot.com

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