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| photo courtesy of Jon Goode |
“I love this weather,” I reply stepping over puddles. “We’re taking your car, mine is too small.”
Goode agreed to perform his poem“The Talk” for me while I recorded it. He wanted to perform it while driving around Cabbagetown, a neighborhood in East Atlanta known for its artsy hipster set. He gets to the car before me and holds the passenger side door open. I slide in and say thank you.
You can’t help to be on your best behavior in the presence of such a Southern gentleman. Goode’s book Conduit: A collectionof poems and short stories by Jon Goode spent 12 weeks as the #1 best-selling book of poetry by an African-American on Amazon.com. So, the combination of fan and journalist in me jumped at the chance to take a ride, but the lady in me wanted to appear well behaved.
Donning a bow tie, vest, button down, hat and carrying an umbrella, Goode is the vision of respectability. He likes to dress well, his dad was a dresser, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Our adventure starts at Home Grown, a restaurant in Reynoldstown known for it's breakfast, where we talk about his work.
“And how are you today?” he ask sitting down at the table crossing his legs.
I was in the middle of transcribing another interview and my chair was next to the wall while my phone was charging. I immediately gathered myself.
“I'm well,” I answer. “So would you like to order breakfast or talk first? I’m really hungry.”
“Let’s eat. You should try the Lynne Stack it’s the best thing on the menu.”
“Really…I was looking over the menu and I liked the prices. I’ve never been here before.”
“Hang wit’ me and I’ll show you a few thangs,” Goode says in his Black southern vernacular.
If there was a camera, we would've both broke the fourth wall.
Making a career out of everyday observations
Goode has made name for himself turning awkward situations into beautiful prose. A spoken word artist, he's appeared on Def Poetry Slam, written for Nickelodeon and has been nominated for an Emmy. At 44 years old the self-published author knows what he wants and orchestrates his career accordingly. Years ago, he left behind a corporate job as an accountant to pursue a career in poetry.
“You can’t grow under fluorescent lights. When you’re coming out of slavery all you want is to be free. For a slave that was sharecropping, then for the sharecropper it was an industrial job, for the industrial worker it was a civil service job and then a white collar job,” He says sounding like a wise uncle. “The generation I came from made it to the cubicles, but you’re miserable. We have to get to the point when we’re thinking about what’s going to make us happy and go one step further and ask ‘What am I put here to do?’”
“Yes, but someone has to mop the floors and pick up the trash,” I say in contradiction. “We can’t all be the boss.”
“No we can’t,” he agrees. “I know a guy that crunches numbers and that’s all he does....he loves it.”
Goode found his gift when he was dragged to an open mic night at Ying Yang Café in 1998. The café nurtured the talents of Fahamu Pecou, Outkast, Kembo Tom, Lil’ Jon Roberts and more. The fledging spoken word artists performed that night and never looked back.
“It was the most transformative night ever. If you came out of that room it was a blessing,” He says staring off into his memory bank. “That thang was like nothing I’ve ever seen. As a writer, artist and poet everything comes out of that room.”
To this day, Goode prefers to write in public at Ebrik Café. Looking around at Homegrown he makes keen observations about customers as they enjoy their meal. His voice becomes hypnotic while he describes his surroundings, noticing details that escape my attention.
“It’s better sitting in a public setting and you can feed off the random energy in the room. It’s a room full of characters. Look how they walk, move and eat. Take for instance that cop sitting across from us and the way his gun sits in the holster,” he says in a low tone. “I like being here late at night, you can’t invent the people that come in. One night a lady came in wrapped in Christmas lights and they were blinking. I don’t know how she got them to blink, but she sat down and ate like that. You can’t invent that type of shit.”
I let out a loud laugh just as our food arrives. My order of eggs, turkey sausage, and grits seems plain compared to Goode’s. The Lynne Stack is made of salmon patties stacked on top of fried green tomatoes, spinach and pimiento cheese - it looks delicious.
“I’ll give you a bite,” he says aware of my envious eyes. He cut into his stack and put the piece on my plate and I immediately felt a connection. Offering me a piece of his food was a familial gesture of Blackness.
I snatch it up with my fork like a predator in the wild. The tastes are vibrant, if you can describe taste in that way. I'm immediately converted into a believer.
“This is so good! This is almost the best thing I’ve had in Atlanta,” I say chewing on my piece of Lynne Stack. Goode’s eyes get big and he cocks his head back.
“Where you been eatin’?” He asks. “I’m tryin’ to learn ya.”
We laugh. Evidently I’ve not been eating at Homegrown.
Life as a Black man in America
“Where are you from Jon?”
“I’m from Harrisburg, Virginia. I grew up in an all Black neighborhood named Oak Grove- Bell Meade -Blackwell. It was rough and that was back when Richmond was the murder capital of the United States.” He says describing an all too familiar scene of the late 80’s and early 90’s. “All I remember in junior high and high school there was a hand full of white people and to go from that to a PWI was a lot to deal with.”
“What was that like for you,” I asked curiously.
I grew up in the Midwest attending all white private schools and then a boarding school with kids from almost every ethnic group. This was my opportunity to ask about matriculating in predominantly Black institutions. I knew he wouldn’t judge me.
“I thought they (white kids) were smarter, but they were just exposed to more,” Goode explains. “I had interesting moments of race issues.”
“What do you mean race issues?”
“One time I was walking with a white friend across campus and cop stops us and asks for our IDs. I didn’t have mine and my white friend went back to the dorms to get his. He told the cop ‘I have mine.’ thinking that would prove we were students and the cop says ‘I don’t need yours, I need his,’” Goode recalls. “My friend asked the cop why he needed my ID when we were clearly students. The cop finally walked away, but my friend had never experienced racism. He asked me if being Black was always like that and I told him that was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Does that same frustration stay with you?” I stop and explain myself further, “I mean…in your work you talk about it in your work.”
“As a Black man in America it stays with you. It’s not just walking down the sidewalk anymore, it’s you in your car,” He continues describing a video of a Black man being shot by a police office after the officers asks for an ID and the man attempts to get his ID out of his pocket. “I just want a better day for my nephew. I am helping raise him, but I remember the day when it changed for him. “
“When what changed for him?”
“When I got pulled over and Josh was in the back seat. He witnessed the natural Black man reaction when a cop pulls up behind you - your hair stands on your neck and you grip the wheel a little tighter. The cop pulled me out of the car and put me in the squad car for something that was taken care of. Josh was terrified and crying,” Goode explains. “While I was in the back of the squad car, the cop says ‘He’ll probably never trust police officers after this.’”
Words that transcend race, religion and creed
I sit there quiet for a moment. We talk more about American history, solve the world’s problems and exchange thoughts on the state of Black America.
“I love Black people,” he says. “I just hate to see us where we’re at.”
“Do you include all of this in your book?”
“My book touches on everything from religion to Black men, even the story about me getting pulled over is in there. It all touches on the Black experience,” he says. “The thing I want to do in telling my story is to tell you your story. If I tell the story right, I will tell you your story or the story of someone you know.”
“I never thought about it like that,”
Goode continues …
“Take for instance the poem “Barbara” about my mother. I have performed that poem in every state except Hawaii, Montana, Maine and Alaska. Wherever I do it, it resonates with people. I’ve done it in London and internet radio in South Africa and they got the most calls about the poem. There are universal truths.”
The hours pass and morning turns into afternoon and I’m ready to record the poem. Goode drives reciting a poem on police brutality. I’m quiet as we pass by walls of graffiti. We stop at a wall close to the Krog Street Bridge and I am amazed at the murals.
“I’ve never been here before. I want to take your picture here.”
We take a few shots of Goode posing with his umbrella. Later, I see the one I took of him posted on his Facebook wall.
“So can I read your article,” he asks before I get out of the car.
“I don’t know Jon, can you?” I retort and tell him no.
“I’ll let you think about it,” he says with a smile.
*This article was published in 2015