A Finer Form

In 1996, the George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry was founded at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with the purpose of promoting the creation and scholarly evaluation of African American poetry. After conferences in Chapel Hill in 1998, 2000, and 2002, the Society met jointly with the second Furious Flower Poetry Conference held at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in September of 2004. The featured activity for the Horton Society was a luncheon at which Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa and internationally famed composer T. J. Anderson discussed their collaboration on an opera entitled Slip Knot.

Their comments on their unusual adventures into creativity make clear the myriad possibilities for collaboration across traditional creative boundaries. Komunyakaa appreciates the rhythms of Anderson's compositions, and Anderson embraces the musicality of Komunyakaa's poetry. The two artists discuss the importance of valuing each other's work, of trusting the collaborative process, and of the need to allow the result of their creativity to rest in the hands and minds of the other. Where to nudge and where to "bid the vassal soar," as George Moses Horton would say, is a line that they adhere to almost without discussion, for both Komunyakaa and Anderson have tried and true histories of sustained creation.

In an engaging exchange in which they informed and entertained the audience of luncheon guests, Komunyakaa and Anderson provided a glimpse into the expansive possibilities of language and music—and the sound that is integral to both of them. By sharing insights into how creativity works, whether it is scanning lines of poetry or limning words that "sing," these artists illustrate that the boundaries between disciplines are always permeable, that the desire to collaborate can always leap over obstacles, and that art can be limited only by imaginations too fragile to push boundaries. By pushing their imaginations, by embracing the differences that have led them to an intertwining oneness, Yusef Komunyakaa and T. J. Anderson have stepped into a sea of diversity and yielded a product of a finer form than either could have produced individually. The path they offer is one that many creative persons might find worthy of emulation.

—Trudier Harris

From Jerry W. Ward's opening remarks at the George Moses Horton Society Luncheon, September, 2004, at James Madison University, Harrisburg, Virginia:

JERRY W. WARD: Slip Knot, the opera, composed by T. J. Anderson with a libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa, tells the story of Arthur, whose last name remains uncertain, a man born into slavery in Massachusetts in 1747, and executed for rape in 1768. During his brief life, he exercised a degree of freedom uncommon for a person with no property in New England. He lived a devil-may-care existence of considerable freedom, moving back and forth between Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. He worked a number of jobs, loved a number of women—often casually, sometimes seriously—tried the sea-faring life, and, when in need, pilfered. Because he was often in conflict with the law, he was often imprisoned, but he escaped numerous times with the aid of both white colonists and Native Americans. He ultimately was accused of rape. Though he insisted he was innocent of the crime, he was tried, convicted, and hanged. As it became known, Arthur's story played a role in turning public opinion in the North against slavery.

The dramatic action follows Arthur as his life becomes increasingly threatened, and his influence increases in the growing New England abolitionist movement. The three main characters, Arthur, his accuser, and his betrayer, are placed among such important social groups as the Christian Massachusetts townspeople, the African American community, and the legal religious establishment. Based largely on court records, Slip Knot is both an intense musical drama and an intriguing exercise in the retrieval of the history of ordinary...