INTERVIEW
WHITNEY MUSEUM RC: How does Gathering of the Tribes connect with The Whitney Biennial? Certainly, Tribes also showcased visual artists as well as writers. Is the connection based upon the artwork as well as the writers who were published by Tribe’s own Fly By Night press?
Girl in the museum, New York, USA © Eric Akoto a second, very large, totally nude, bald man with a tiny penis and enormous testicles. The nude man from our parade and him immediately locked eyes, and everyone squealed like we were witnessing some long-fated meeting. They did not know one another. It was a total coincidence. They looked like tweedledee and tweedledum. We all crammed into the club, hundreds of us, and partied all night like heathens. The two nude men became inseparable throughout the party and got a lot of attention, I might add, from the glam rock kids who were there. Someone even ripped their shirt and tied an arm band around the second one, so they matched. I remember, this glittered covered girl was flirting with them and her friend came up to her while she was talking to them and asked, ridiculously, “Oh, my god! Are they actually like totally naked,” and the girl giggled and told him, “No. They’re wearing armbands.” Steve made me describe them to him over and over again, and it really made him laugh. He loved stuff like that. 34 | LITRO
CW: The exhibition at the Whitney is a sort of meta-re-creation of the 285 East 3rd Street space. It showcases Tribes simultaneously as the artist, Steve Cannon’s life’s work, a collaborative project between hundreds of artists and writers over 30 years’ time, and a collection of archival materials including David Hammons’ red wall, Steve’s personal library, as well as the books and magazines published by Tribe’s Fly by Night Press, which add up to something much greater than the sum of their parts. RC: Steve Cannon’s literary Rolodex (they were a ’90s thing) is impressive. One of the reasons I write poetry is because of an NYU production: for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Steve Cannon knew ntozake shange, Thulani Davis, Robbie McCauley all iconic writers and theater artists who spoke of their gender powers and Black identity. I knew that I could connect my birth as a poet to ntozake shange and Filipino writers Jessica Hagedorn and Cyn. Zarco. Steve Cannon gave me a historical womb to be birthed as a poet. I do think it is this history that made me feel safe and that I would be welcome. Can you tell us a little about where this hospitable and magnanimous space that is Gathering of the Tribes comes from? CW: Tribes 285 East 3rd Street Salon was always open, literally 24/7, though I’m not sure it was hospitable. It was never a safe space. It was actually a space fertile with provocation, heated debate, potentially
offensive statements and material awaiting you at every turn. Steve was a multiculturalist. In some ways, Tribes was like the opposite of canceled culture. He rarely kicked anyone out for anything, even when I sometimes thought he should have. Even if he did kick someone out, they could still return the next day. I don’t think he ever 86-ed anyone. This is complicated to talk about. He did something so special with that space. He really believed diversity could change the world. He felt that people who had experiences of oppression in this society were stronger together, and that in order to work together, we really had to deal with each other. When I first moved in with him, he asked me what I was reading. I gave him the list and he asked me, “Why are you only reading white people?” He said, “You’re only reading white, gay authors, like you.” I was 21, coming from the rural Midwest and South, and hadn’t really thought about it before, but as soon as he said it, I knew it was true. He gave me a list of authors to read, and I did. He expanded me intellectually because of that. He didn’t cancel people for their xenophobia, conscious or unconscious, but he also wouldn’t let it stand. He confronted it. We confronted each other. I remember, a friend of his was sitting at dinner with us and saying some really homophobic things, specifically about lesbians, and he said, “Why don’t you ask Chavisa how she feels about what you just said.” He made me confront the man. We argued. He bristled and left in a bad mood, but a few days later, when he came back to Tribes, he apologized to me and told me he thought about what I’d said and had never talked to a gay woman about those types of things before. It’s different when you are in a space with a human being, looking right at them, saying “Your bigotry hurts me,” than when
