The Writer In America: Toni Morrison (1978)

[Music] I was in a a writers group when I was in Washington DC I joined a writers group because it was a nice thing to do once a month and I like the people in it most of them are poets as I recall some were published and we had certain rules we set up for ourselves one was you couldn't keep coming without um bringing something you'd written something new so one afternoon I sat down on a couch my little boy was less than a year and he was you you know pulling on my earrings and doing whatever and I was writing like this on a legal pad and he would you know go away and crawl back and so on and I got terribly interested in what I was doing got really good to figure out which word came before the next and what was explosive and so on but just you know hurriedly writing it for that evening's meeting and uh while I was in the middle of a extremely important sentence he spit up he threw up all over my face the funny part is that I rode around it I mean you know every woman knows it you know they spit up all the time that I could take care of but I might not get that sentence again following her graduation from Howard University Tony Morrison obtained what she describes as a shaky ma from Cornell and for the next 8 and one2 years she taught English first at Texas Southern University and then at her Alma mat Howard now will call him now I mean not this instant in 1966 she was hired by Random House beginning in Syracuse as a textbook editor and a year later moved to New York City by this time she had acquired two children and divorce her first novel The Bluest Eye was published in 1970 serious writing began really after I took the job as a textbook editor perhaps it was a recent divorce and the fact that I had these two small children that I was a sole support of I know that I was not happy and I was eager to learn my job but my spirit was was hurt and I was very lonely so the writing became a thing to do you know after to the children I was very confused that the writing was a was something I did with relief it was a try a way of ordering I think the universe no that's the point I have some stuff that I have signed her up for already uh two pieces but there's lots of other [Music] stuff there was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in her mouth all of the sounds of Pauline's Soul standing a little apart from the choir Ivy sang the dark sweetness that Pauline could not name she sang the death defying death that Pauline yearned for she sang of the stranger who knew precious Lord take my hand Leave Me on let me stand I'm tired I'm weak I am worn through the storms through the night lead me on to the light take my hand precious Lord lead me on when my way grows Dreer precious Lord linger near when my life is almost gone Hear My Cry Hear My Call hold my hand lest I fall take my hand precious Lord lead me on thus it was that when the stranger the someone did appear out of nowhere Pauline was grateful but not surprised he came strutting right out of a Kentucky son on the hottest day of the year he came big he came strong he came with yellow eyes flaring nostrils and he came with his own music Pauline was leaning highly on the fence her arms resting on the cross Rail between the pickets she just put down some biscuit dough and was cleaning the flower from under her nails behind her at some distance she heard whistling one of those rapid high note Rifts that black boys make up as they go while sweeping and shoveling or just walking along a kind of City Street Music where laughter belies anxiety and joy is a short and Str as the blade of a pocket knife she listened carefully to the music and let it pull her lips into a smile the whing got louder and still she did not turn around but she wanted it to last while smiling to herself and holding fast to the break and somber thoughts she felt something tickling her foot she laughed aloud and turned to see The Whistler was bending down tickling her broken foot and kissing her leg she he could not stop her laughter not until he looked up at her and she saw the Kentucky son drenching the yellow heavy litted eyes of Charlie breed love when I first see Charlie I want you to know it was like all the bits of color from that time down home but all us children went very picking after funeral and I put some of the pocket put some in the pocket of my Sunday dress and imag mashed up and stained my hips my whole dress was messed up with purple never did wash out not the dress no me I could feel that purple deep inside me and a lemonade Mama used to make when Pap came in out of the fields it'd be cool and yellowish with seeds floating near the bottom and that streak of green them June bugs made on the trees the night we left them down home all them colors was in me just sitting there so when Charlie come up and tickle my foot it was like them berries that lemonade them streaks of green the June bugs made all come together Charlie was thin then with real light eyes he used to whistle and when I hear him Shivers come on my skin I was born in L Ohio 1931 my mother and a family from Alabama my father from Georgia my maiden name is wford my married name is Morrison I was a very good student but I don't think I went to college because of that there wasn't I wanted to leave that town and uh that was a way to go I chose Howard because it was a black University and I really wanted to be among what I thought would be intelligent black people by the boatload although she and her sons now have an apartment in New York City Tony Morrison's real home is an hours commute away in the town of Spring Valley in Rockland County New York so she said across the river she took me to her real estate person who showed me 11 houses in that day and my mother says to me you moved all the way to New York to live in a place that looks like Lor Ohio I said [Music] yes when I wrote Sula it was because I couldn't I knew then I couldn't stop writing same thing with Song of Solomon I always wrote for the people in the book those are always the people over my shoulder who watch and they say uh-uh uh-uh I didn't say that or they say okay that's just about right I suppose the blue St was about one's dependency on the world for identification self value feelings of worth whereas I wanted to explore something quite the opposite in Sula where you have a woman who is Whimsical who depends on her own instincts and both exaggeration I find deplorable but my way is to push everything out to the edge to see if what it is really made so that Sula would be quote a free woman there's a lot of danger in that you know because you don't have commitments and you don't feel that connection um I think Freedom ideally is being able to choose your responsibilities not not having any responsibilities but being able to choose which things you want to be responsible for and so she is paired with a friend now who is the salt of the earth who takes on the responsibilities of her children and whatever as opposed to her very close friend who has none accepts none and really and truly operates out of Whimsy whim and whatever mood strikes her evil was mean Su had even said so there was no good reason for her to speak so feebleminded or not old whatever even knew what she was doing always had she'd stayed away from sula's funeral and accused n of drowning Chicken Little for spite the same Spike that galloped all over the bottom that made every gesture and offense every off center smile a threat so even the bubbles of relief that broke in the chest of practically everybody when Sula died did not soften their spite and allow them to go to Mr haj's funeral par or send flowers from the church or bake a yellow cake she thought about Nathan opening the bedroom door the day she had visited her and finding the body he said he knew right right away she was dead not because her eyes were open but because her mouth was looked to him like a giant yawn that she never got to finish he'd run across the street to Toot's mama who when she heard the news said ho like the conductor on the train when was about to take off except louder and then she did a little dance none of the women left their quilt patches in disarray to run to the house nobody left the clothes halfway through the ringer to run to the house even the men just said when they heard the day passed and no one came the night slipped into another day and the body was still lying in Eva's bed gazing at the ceiling trying to complete a yawn it very strange the stubbornness about Sula for even when China the most rambunctious [ __ ] in the town died whose black son and white son said when they heard she was dying she ain't dead yet even then everybody stopped what they were doing and turned out in numbers to put the Fallen sister away it was n who finally called the hospital then the Mortuary then the police were the ones to come so the white people took over they came in a police van and carried the body down the steps past the four pear trees and into the van for all the world as with Hannah when the police asked questions nobody gave them any information took them hours to find out the dead woman's first name the call was for a Miss piece at seven Carpenters road so they left with that a body a name and an address the white people had to wash her dress her prepare her and finally lower her it was all done elegantly for it was discovered that she had substantial death policy n went to the funeral parlor but was so shocked by the closed coffin she stayed only a few minutes the following day n walked to the bearing and found herself the only black person there stealing her mind to the roses and pulley it was only when she turned to leave that she saw the cluster of Black Folk at the lip of the cemetery not coming in not dressed for morning but there waiting not until the white folks left the grave diggers Mr M Hodes and their young son who assisted them did those black people from up in the bottom enter with hooded hearts and filed eyes to sing shall we gather at the river over the curved Earth that cut them off from the most magnificent hatred they had ever known their question clotted the October air shall We Gather at the river the Beautiful the beautiful River perhaps Sula answered them even then for it began to rain and the women ran in tiny leaps through the grass for fear their straightened hair would beat them home sadly heavily Nell left the colored part of the cemetery further along the road shadra passed her by a little shaggier a little older still energetically mad he looked at the woman hurrying along the road with the sunset in her face he stopped trying to remember where he'd seen her before the effort of recollection was too much for him and he moved on he had to haul some trash out at Sunny Dale and it would be good and dark before he got home he hadn't sold fish in a long time now the river had killed them all no more silver gray flashes no more flat wide unhurried look no more slowing down of gills no more trimmer on the line Shadrach and Nel moved in opposite directions each thinking separate thoughts about the past the distance between them increased as they both remembered gone things suddenly nil stopped her eye twitched and burned a little Sula she whispered gazing at the tops of trees Sula leaves stirred mud shifted there was a smell of overright green things a soft ball of fur broken scattered like dandelion spores in the breeze all that time all all that time I thought I was missing J and the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat we was girls together she said as though explaining something oh Lord Tula she cried girl girl girl girl girl it was a fine cry loud and long but it had no bottom and it had no top just circles and Circles of Sorrow Tony Morrison's thirdd novel Song of Solomon published by Koff in 1977 received wide critical praise it also became a book of the Month Club selection all of this meant that although she continued to work as an editor Tony Morrison was catapulted into star status as a literary celebrity I went toine Ohio my hometown you in the woman said I read so much about that woman's book I thought I'd buy it she said but I went upstairs and there she was in that low cut dress the Dodgers just scored two runs in the first top of the first now there he is fixing it in time two we know exactly when it is well they're going to have to they're going to play that full run right exactly I edited Muhammad Ali's autobiography I edited uh Angela Davis's autobiography I edited a book that got a lot of attention I love that book a lot called the black book it's very exciting project for me I would like to stop writing around the edges of the day and you know in the Automobiles and places like that I want to sit down in the middle of the day and spend five hours at it and not feel guilty that I've taken some time away from a full-time job or some other chore I'm supposed to be doing that's what I want to feel and if Song of Solomon proves to be more than a literary success it may make that possible for me but for years you know I've been working since I was 12 years old and I tell you I'm getting tired I'm fortunate I like the and I respect the work I do but I don't want to take every lecture every class every everything to make the additional income that I must have in order to be the head of a household with growing sons in the midst of parties and promotional appearances for Song of Solomon Tony Morrison found time to go to New Orleans in connection with the book she is editing on Master Chefs of New Orleans [Music] I heard it all my life I must have heard it so early that I don't remember the hearing you know the actual telling it was a given that there was a time when black people could fly at will you know like a bird that's a tremendous story and when I was an adult I read those slave narratives the federal writers project used to do Collective stories of the slaves and the children of slaves one question they always ask them was about did you ever know anyone who who flew everybody said yes either they saw it or they had a relative or friend who had seen it in the situation was always the same somebody got fed up and ran out into the fields and whir and Whirled and Whirled it flew away man greater love has no woman in the world I tell you that's the only way I got down here I went they said where'd he go they say back to Africa good to see you oh yall look good New York New York is all right this is what action is down here so I was very concerned about that being not the metaphor for anything really I would start with the simplest thing which was supposed it were really true that there were Africans who could fly literally true Hagar was dead and he had not loved her one bit and guitar was somewhere in shalomar there was General mert at his quick return and pilot blended into the population like a stick of butter in a churn they stayed with Omar's family and on the second and last evening Milkman and pilot walked up the road to the path that led to Solomon's leap it was the higher of the two outcropping of rock both both flatheadedgorilla a deep sigh escaped from the SAT and the wind turned chill Ginger a spicy sugared Ginger smell enveloped them pilot laid the bones carefully into the small grave Milkman heaped dirt over them and packed it down with the back of his shovel should we put a rock or cross on it Milkman asked pilot shook her head she reached up and yanked her earring from her ear splitting the lobe then she made a little hole with her fingers and placed in it saying snuffbox with a single word Jake ever wrote she stood up then and it seemed to Milkman that he heard the shot after she fell he dropped to his knees and cradled her Ling head in the crook of his arm barking at you hurt you Hur pilot she laughed softly and he knew right away that she was reminded of the day he first met her and said the most stupid thing there was to say the Twilight had thickened and all around them it was getting dark Milkman moved his hand over her chest and stomach trying to find the place where she might be hit pilot you okay he couldn't make out her eyes his hand under her head was sweating like a fountain pilot she sigh watch Reba for me and then I wish I had know more people I would have loved them all if I had have knowed more I would have loved more Milkman bent low to see her face and saw Darkness staining his hand not sweat but blood oozing from her neck down into his CED hand hand he pressed his fingers against the skin as if to force the life back in her back into the place it was escaping from that had only made it float a Vasa frantically he thought of tourniquet and could even hear the rip of cloth he should have been tearing he shifted his weight and was about to lay her down the better to wrap her wound when she spoke again sing she said sing a little something for me Milkman knew no songs and had no singing voice that anybody would want to hear but he couldn't ignore the urgency in her voice speaking the words without the least bit of a tune he sang for the lady sugar girl don't leave me here cotton balls choke me sugar girl don't leave me here Buck's arms to yoke me the blood was not pulsing out any longer and there was something black and bubbly in her mouth yet when she moved her head a little to gaze at something behind his shoulder it took a while for him to realize that she was dead and when he did he could not stop the worn old words from coming louder louder as though sheer volume would wake her he woke only the bird who shuddered off into the air Milkman laid her head down on the Rock two of the birds circled around them one dived into the new Grave and scooped something shiny in its beak before it flew away now he knew why he loved her so without ever leaving the ground she could fly there must be another one like you he whispered to her there's got to be at least one more woman woman like you even as he knelt over her he knew there wouldn't be another mistake that the minute he stood up guitar would try to blow his head off he stood up guitar he shouted tar tar tar said the hills over here Brotherman can you see me Milkman cued his mouth with one hand and waved the other over his head here I am am and am said the Rocks you want me huh you want my life life life life squatting on the edge of the other flatheadedgorilla [Music] he could just make out guitar's head and shoulders in the dark you want my life Milkman was not shouting now you need it here without wiping away the tears taking a deep breath or even bending his knees he leaped as Fleet and bright as a load star he wheeled toward guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in The Killing arms of his brother for now he knew what shalomar knew if you surrendered to the air you could ride it I'm just so happy that the novel that I'm thinking about now came so fast after the Song of Solomon I was very depressed after I finished song of song as I I think many writers are when they get through the work so was lying in bed and I just felt so sorry for myself I mean a delicious pit of uh nobody loves me my hands are shaped wrong the weather is bad I can't fix the water faucet I mean it was just whatever you can think of I felt awful and I was thinkinking slow for