Walls

Kenneth A. McClane

Description

Walls: Essays, 1985-1990, Kenneth McClane's first book of autobiographical essays (originally published in 1991), is closely related to his second collection, Color, published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2009. Walls is a powerful and deeply moving meditation on relationships. It begins with an essay on the death of McClane's brother, Paul, which "changed everything. Time, my work, everything found a new calculus."

His brother's life and death are present in some way in all the essays that follow "A Death in the Family," as McClane tells us about giving a poetry reading in a maximum-security prison; his experience of being one of the first two African American students to attend America's oldest private school; teaching creative writing; his sister, Adrienne; a divestment protest at Cornell; and his encounters with James Baldwin.

McClane has written a new preface to this paperback edition of Walls, in which he reminds us that we are inevitably interconnected: we are each other’s witness.

Sujets

• Literary Figures
• Essays
• Lettres et linguistique
• América
• Biography
• Education outcomes in the United States by race and other classifications
• Color
• American
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268086824
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 78 Mo

Extrait

WA L L S

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL HERITAGE

Paul Spickard and Patrick Miller, Series Editors

W A L L S

Essays 1985 –1990

Kenneth A. McClane

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2010 by Kenneth A. McClane

Paperback edition published in 2010 by the University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

First published in 1991 by Wayne State University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McClane, Kenneth A., 1951– Walls : essays 1985–1990 / Kenneth A. McClane. — Pbk. ed. p. cm. — (The African American intellectual heritage) Originally published: Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 1991. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03520-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-03520-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. McClane, Kenneth A., 1951– 2. African American poets—Biography. 3. African Americans—Biography. I. Title. PS3563.A26119Z46 2010 814'.6—dc22 [B] 2010024342

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For Alvin Aubert

Who Knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? —Ralph Ellison,Invisible Man

Contents

Preface to the 2010 Paperback Edition

Introduction

A Death in the Family

Walls: A Journey to Auburn

The School

Unity Day

Baxter’s Program: Creative Writing at Cornell

Intimate Injustice

Keep On Keeping On

Between Yes and No

Acknowledgments

9

13

17

29

45

65

77

83

97

111

121

Preface to the 2010 Paperback Edition

I am delighted that the University of Notre Dame Press has decided to republish my first collection of essays, Walls book. The was a true labor of love—it was my way of dealing with a brother dead; and, just as importantly, it was my small attempt at celebrating my mother and father, who never thought their child would prede- cease them. Of course, the book is about much more: there is an essay about my brain-damaged sister, a narrative about a poetry reading I gave at the second oldest maximum-security prison in America, a long essay about my ruinous experience as one of the first two black students at the oldest private school in America, a treatise about teaching creative writing, and a paean to the great au- thor James Baldwin, who taught me much. Still, my brother is at the center of each piece, even if he is not mentioned, looming like a clas- sical deity. And yet the essays are not dreary or doom-tainted. If my brother taught me anything, it was to see life as a boundless com- mencement. My brother was neither easygoing nor conventional, and he lived hard. He asked of me only to live my own life. “Be your- self, bro,” he’d say.

9