John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Widemanis an American writer, professor at Brown University, and sits on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth14 June 1941
CountryUnited States of America
begin habit morning wake
When I wake up in the morning, I need the writing to go to. I begin there. And that's not an accident, I mean, that habit of getting up in the morning and going to my writing first thing.
african aunt came church episcopal family folk historian information members methodist older stories
My aunt Geraldine was the unofficial historian and storyteller. She had all the information about family members and the gossip that came out of the church because we were very much part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. At family gatherings, the older folk had the floor, had pride of place, and it was their stories I remember.
business facts finding history itself therefore truth understand version
In Haiti, as I understand it, storytelling and history itself are not a business of necessarily elucidating facts or the truth of an incident, but finding the version that is most entertaining and therefore will get retold and live in immortality.
brought historical liked romantic whatever
My mother was a reader; my father was a reader. Not anything particularly sophisticated. My mother read fat historical or romantic novels; my father liked to read Westerns, Zane Grey, that kind of stuff. Whatever they brought in, I read.
aware beginning gauge knowledge life respect
All my life, I've been very aware of my body. I have always used it as a gauge of things. When I look at a person, and I see their body, that's the beginning of knowledge about them. Furthermore, I respect the body.
listen music time
I wish I had time to listen to music more.
change less
Real change is always violent, but it may hurt a lot less than what's in place before the violence occurs.
family home
Home wasn't so much a house as people, family.
dream fall enemy
Do not fall asleep in your enemy's dream.
eye reality artist
A great artist transforms our world, removes scales from our eyes, plugs from our ears, gloves from our fingertips and teaches us to perceive reality differently.
book writing thinking
I don't write books because I have answers. I write books because I have questions. What we are is the questions that we ask, not the answers that we provide. It's all about the process of self-examination. I think that's what the best writing always contains.
basketball dream air
When it's played the way is supposed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.
children wall kids
Kids use words in ways that release hidden meanings, revel the history buried in sounds. They haven't forgotten that words can be more than signs, that words have magic, the power to be things, to point to themselves and materialize. With their back-formations, archaisms, their tendency to play the music in words--rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, repetition--children peel the skin from language. Words become incantatory. Open Sesame. Abracadabra. Perhaps a child will remember the word and will bring the walls tumbling down.
powerful people trying
If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to shut him up?