QT2

On Writing From the Heart:
An Interview with Quincy Troupe

 
     And what I was saying earlier, I think with a lot of young writers, and I'm not putting them down, it's just another job like they're going into something to make money. Instead of being computer scientists they are writing these books because somebody is giving them some money and they're thinking about royalties. And I think that in and of itself, I'm not saying that's bad or good, but I'm just saying that is a process. And I think Garcia Marquez was not thinking that way and Pablo Neruda wasn't thinking that way. They were doing it because of the fact that they love to do it. And I'm not saying a lot of these writers don't love to do it, I'm saying that it's a different and this is what Ishmael and I were talking about, it's a different kind of headset.
 
QBR: Well, let me ask you this, because you mentioned focus and discipline? I find that the other part is having something to say and it seems like writers today have nothing to say so they talk about themselves. Agree, disagree?
 
QT: I agree, that most writers are self-indulgent, most young people are self-indulgent. They didn't have to go through anything for the most part. Ishmael and I went through a lot to get to this place we're at in our sixties. We went through a lot. A lot of disappointment, a lot of joy, a lot of friends who died, political commitment to things. We fought for Toni Morrison to get the Pulitzer Prize, a group of us forty people; we fought for her to get the Pulitzer Prize. We wrote letters for her to get the Pulitzer Prize. Not because we were trying to do something because she's Black [but] because she deserved it. She deserved it for her outlet, she deserved it for what she was doing. And they were not looking at what she was doing, as they try to not look at what Ishmael does or what I do.
 
QBR: Who were the models that inspired your art?

QT: My models, the three main models in my life as artists were first; Miles Davis, who then lead me to Pablo Neruda, and then Pablo Picasso. And then later, Garcia Marquez. Those four were models for me. Miles Davis was very important for me [because] he kept regenerating himself and I saw that it was possible. Here's a guy, I'm from St. Louis, he's from East St. Louis. He was my absolute cultural hero. Here he was changing all the time, which for me was remarkable and made him much more interesting because I never knew what he was going to do. So I was always trying to figure out what he was going to do and I was always trying to keep ahead of him. I would buy his records without having heard them, He got me to that point. Now some of them were disappointing to me but I would buy his records without having heard them. And I would be either happy or sad but most of the time I was happy. The same thing was true with Pablo Neruda. When I started writing poetry, as a poet he was always changing, always regenerating. He could write about his feet, he could write about love poems, he could write about vegetables, he could write political poems, he could write sonnets, he could write odes, he could write about mountain ranges, he could write about revolution; he could write about everything. He could write about anything that came into his mind. That was my second model; he was my model as a poet.
 And then the next one visually was Pablo Picasso. Once I saw 'Guernica', that painting on war, I said, "wow, look at that painting. Wow, who is this guy?" So I started looking at [and] trying to find all of his paintings, what did he do? I didn't know him, but then I found out Miles Davis knew him. And I said, "wow, I gotta' put that together. He knew Miles Davis [and] Miles Davis knew him". And then I looked at every show I could I see about Picasso. I would go look at what he was doing visually and it was remarkable because his work was always like Miles, like Neruda, was always changing and was always regenerating himself. And so those three people were the main driving impetuous that led me later to people like Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. Pablo Picasso led me to Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, not the other way around. I got him first and then went and found them. Cause I said, "Who are the Black artists?" That led me to Joe Overstreet, and Ed Clarke, and Al Loving, Melvin Edwards and a whole range of people. That was who led me into visual arts, it was Pablo Picasso but Miles Davis led me into all of it.