Growing Up On Jazz
My dad was a jazz fan and I grew up listening to it. He listened to instrumental jazz, as well as jazz with female vocalists. He was a fan of Billie Holiday and Dakota Stanton as well as Ella Fitzgerald to a lesser degree. He tuned my ear to that kind of music.
I really like the sound (of female jazz vocalists). I like how the singer interprets the song and how they convey emotion with their voices.
Although I grew up listening to a lot of jazz I didn't get really into it until I went to college. While there I went to a few jazz clubs in Washington. I mainly went to the Famous Ballroom.
Becoming A Poet
I wrote my first poem in first grade. It was a poem about the seasons. I published my first poem when I was in my early twenties. The poem was called "I'm Made of Jazz." That was the longest poem I had ever written.
The poem came to me in its entirety out of the blue, and I didn't revise it. It was around then that I started to declare myself a poet.
My marriage brought me to North Carolina. After I became a mother I attended UNCG and received my MFA in creative writing in 1992. Some of my major influences (for poetry) are Langston Hughes, Ntozake Shange, as well as jazz itself.
Her Connection To Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (from Weatherford's book "Becoming Billie Holiday") has always been my muse. I first heard Holiday as a tot and got hooked on her after seeing the film "Lady Sings the Blues." Billie became my muse sometime around 1980. She made cameos in my earlier works and eventually prodded me to pen her memoir.
I'm drawn to her because we both grew up in Baltimore, because her music is the soundtrack for my memories, but mostly because I feel she needs empathy. So in "Becoming Billie Holiday" I tried to portray her as sensitively as possible.
Historical Figures In Her Work
I became interested in John Coltrane (from "Before John Became a Jazz Giant") because he grew up in my adoptive hometown of High Point. Harriet Tubman (from "Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom") hails from Dorchester County, Md., the same county where my family has roots. She has always been an inspirational figure to me. I tend to write about figures who are not as well-known as they should be. Sometimes I'm trying to shed light on a different part of their story, a part that hasn't been addressed. A lot of what I'm writing now blurs the line between poetry, nonfiction, historical fiction and biography.
If She Could Go Back In Time
I'd like to know my ancestors who arrived from other continents –– who could connect me with my roots.
Poetry For All Ages
I started (my career) off writing poetry for adults. When I became a mother and started reading to my children, I started writing poetry for different audiences.
I saw that there was a multicultural boom (during that time) in the '80s. It occurred to me then that I could fit in that niche.
Although I write for children, I'm also writing for the adults who are going to share the books with their children.
Awards and Honors
I was awarded a NAACP image award for "Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom." I also won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor for "Becoming Billie Holiday."
I'll be reading at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in March during the Cool Jazz Family Day. The event is a celebration of me donating my papers (which include manuscripts, clippings, photographs, proofs and CDs) to the Jackson Library.
— Charles Wood, charles.wood@news-record.com
