Of all birds, why did you choose the hummingbird for your canary in the coal mine analogy?
I was like, what would be the most awkward bird that you could find in my neighborhood? A hummingbird. And they sing songs, and I believe that everybody has a song to sing, everybody has a story to tell, but because of the obstacles and oppression that people are trapped under, they don’t get a chance to sing those songs. They don’t even get to see the beauty in themselves. Canaries aren’t supposed to be in mines, just like hummingbirds aren’t supposed to be in trenches. But we live with these conditions every day. The places we’re living in, the places we get food, the schools we attend—we’re not supposed to be there.

You talk about hummingbirds who find a path out, and you seem to be one of them. How did it happen in your life?
If there’s a plan to keep the poor poor and the oppressed oppressed, some people do end up slipping through the cracks. People ask me all the time, ‘What makes you different? How did you get out?’ I’m not special. I am them, and they are me. I just happened to stumble upon some opportunities and some resources that I utilized and ended up here. That was luck, or whatever you want to call it—luck, God, the Universe, Allah—it was all outside factors that played into me rising out of these tough situations mentally and physically.

I didn’t have no ambition to go to college. I just stumbled across some opportunities that aren’t afforded to everyone in my neighborhood. I had to beg my grandma to sign a Parent PLUS Loan. I ended up going to Virginia State University to study sport management. I was in English 101 or something my freshman year, and it was the first time I started reading Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes . . . and in my spare time, I’m reading rap lyrics, Amy Winehouse, and other writers and singers and rappers, and I found myself falling in love with reading. I would legit skip class to read books and articles and the dictionary. And then I fell in love with writing, too. And it changed my life tremendously.

I don’t really even have words for it. I started having my own thoughts, I started relearning things, throwing away some bull— that people taught me and started coming up with my own ideas. I became a critical thinker. Now I can maneuver any tough situation, whereas someone else might make this mistake because they’re not thinking critically and there’s always someone else thinking for them or telling them what they should do, should like, should hate. I can make these decisions on my own. In a nutshell, that’s what it was.

The book is set up like an album, with a track list. Is that a reference to hip-hop or rap you hear on the streets?
I was heavily influenced by hip-hop when I started writing. I believe it’s the best genre of music, the most intricate genre, and I like to emulate that in my work. Rap music raised me. When I didn’t have anybody to talk to, I could listen to certain artists, and they’d help me get through tough situations. I tried to pay homage to that in a sense. Some of my favorite poets are rappers, like Tupac, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill.

Do people ever tell you that you look like Tupac?
Yeah, I get that.

How does hip-hop inform your voice and style in your essays?
I don’t hold back punches because in the rap music that I listen to, they don’t hold back any punches. They say exactly how they feel, exactly what they’re going through—whether it’s feelings of suicide or having thoughts of killing someone else. They’re saying, “F— the police,” not “we dislike cops.” They don’t say, “My mother was suffering drug abuse.” They say, “She was shooting crack in her neck.”

Why did you decide to self-publish?
I was just fascinated with the idea of having something physical that can stay on this Earth for years after you’re dead and gone. So I released my first book, Asperous Artistry, in 2015. I didn’t know anything about the publishing world. I didn’t want to have to wait on anybody—waiting for them to review my [stuff], waiting for them to send an ‘okay’ email like, ‘Yeah, we gonna rock out’ or whatever. We live in the age of social media, so I can really rock out on my own. Then I self-published Raw Wounds, and I saw the success that that got and the people who backed it, how many schools and universities it was taught in. Being on TV with a self-published book—that fueled me more than anything.

Baltimore educator Valencia D. Clay comments in the foreword that you wrote this for the hummingbirds who haven’t found a path out yet.
I could tell stories about anything. Me telling these stories is to let people in my neighborhood see the beauty in who we are. I can travel to London and share stories and experiences, and it gives them hope when they see me speaking about them and immortalizing the neighborhoods we come from.

Do you think you’ll stay in Baltimore all your life?
I want my crib to be here. This is where I always want my home to be. I could run off and go somewhere else, but it’s not going to erase the pain of what’s happening here. I’m spiritually, emotionally, and mentally connected to this place. If I’m sitting 80 stories up in Paris somewhere, drinking gentrified cocktails, getting phone calls from friends and family who are still getting thrown in prison and getting murdered, that’s not gonna erase none of that. So it’s like, run for what? As you get older, you realize everybody run. Everybody dip. And the energy’s not here—that positive energy, those resources. We can be prominent figures in the world and stay in Baltimore—be here so we can do school visits and have real relationships with people.

Catch Kondwani Fidel at two performances on Sunday, September 30, at The Baltimore Book Festival at the Inner Harbor. First, at 2 p.m. at CityLit Stage in Patricia Smith & A Bunch of Incendiary Poets Poeting, reading alongside Gayle Danley, Dora Malech, Lady Brion, Keegan Cook Finberg, and others; then at 3 p.m. at the Radical Bookfair Pavilion, presenting Hummingbirds in the Trenches. He will also be a panelist at the NAMI Metro Baltimore 35th Anniversary at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 27, at Baltimore Center Stage.

Lit!Pop!Bang! is a Baltimore podcast that explores all things, well, lit, pop . . . and bang.

They chat about literature they’re reading, they banter about the latest in pop culture, and if you’re wondering what the “bang!” is in reference to, it’s that little something extra that gives listeners some insight into the personality of the host and guests, like asking what literary figure from the past they would most like to have dinner with.

The Baltimore podcast is hosted by writers and educators Anthony Moll and CeCe and produced by Mason Jar Press. It launched in December 2017 and has brought together area authors, poets, and other creatives for light conversations that sometimes integrate heavier topics and current issues. Without a designated studio, they’ve hosted Lit!Pop!Bang! at a number of unorthodox locations.

“We were once in an office closet,” CeCe says. “We’ve been everywhere from people’s bathrooms to—.” She cuts herself off and laughs. “I’m kidding. We have not recorded in a bathroom. But we’re very DIY.”

The upside of not having a studio is that it allows them to be very fluid.

Their second on-location podcast will be recorded live next weekend at the Baltimore Book Festival, where they’ll bring Maren Wright-Kerr, the Baltimore Youth Poet Laureate, and widely known poet, writer, and teacher Ailish Hopper to the CityLit Stage at 1 p.m. Sept. 30 to talk specifically about race in writing, publishing, and pop culture. The broader topic is about identity. They’ll ask things like who gets published? And why? And who are the gatekeepers?

“We want to have the conversations that can be hard to have,” Moll says. “We want to be our usual selves, too—from being very serious but also irreverent. We’re just putting on audio the conversations we’re already having.”

“We try to find out what’s ticking underneath the facade,” CeCe adds.

They also hope to include some audience participation in the form of a Q&A session, if time allows.

“The call-and-response is real, and it’s risky in that anything can happen,” says CityLit Project director Carla Du Pree, who organized a packed lineup over all three days of the CityLit Stage. “We applaud Lit!Pop!Bang! for standing up to this challenge and bringing it. I love it when people aren’t afraid to venture into new spaces.”

The Baltimore Book Festival, in its 23rd year, runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 28-30 at the Inner Harbor Promenade and is free and open to the public.

Moll, who holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts, is a longtime Book Fest goer, but this will be his first year presenting. CeCe has lived in Baltimore for about three years, and this is her third year being part of the festival. She’ll also be reading her own poetry.

“Baltimore Book Festival is a place where everybody can come—all ages, all races, all gender identities—and you can really find whatever it is you’re into,” CeCe says. “I’ve been to book fests across the country, and this is one of the best.”

As a fiction writer, director of CityLit Project, and chair of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Diversity Outreach Committee, Columbia’s Carla Du Pree is a tour de force—and she’s also a staff of one for the annual CityLit Festival, which celebrates its 15th year this month. The free, all-day event will bring in dozens of new and established writers to the University of Baltimore for readings, workshops, and one-on-one sessions with guest editors. We sat down with Du Pree at Motor House in Station North to discuss her role in the region’s literary arts scene and her goal of making it more inclusive and accessible to all communities.

You became executive director of CityLit Project in 2016. What’s your mission, in your own words, for the organization?
When I first got this position in Baltimore, it seemed like the literary community was divided. Everyone was kind of doing their own little thing. You’d find the same people attending the same kind of readings. And I kept thinking that’s wrong—that’s not how literature works. It works when you surprise yourself by attending a reading you never thought you’d resonate with, and you discover something there.

I love it when people discover new writers, because I remember the joy of finding someone’s work that resonated with me. It was like a gift that I needed to share—you can’t keep it all to yourself. The game-changer of writing is [its ability to] open doors to what’s possible and to take risks. We hear a lot about Baltimore being a place where people stand up for themselves and right wrongs, and we [at the CityLit Project] said, we’re not going to be afraid of that. We’re not going to be afraid of those hard conversations. Because people are living those truths, and that’s what writing should be about: our truths, whatever they look like.

As an arts ambassador for the Maryland State Arts Council, I’ve learned to show up in unexpected places to experience art. I recently showed up at a Friday night reading during an LGBT community event. I saw several poets you might never see on another stage, and my question is, why is that?

Have you seen that changing at all?
We had a Writers Resist event shortly after the 2016 election because we wanted to see how different communities felt about it and how it affected them personally. We pulled about 16 poets into one room on a Sunday afternoon, and [EMP Collective] was packed for three hours. For three hours. It was standing room only—people were sitting on the floor, in the hall where they couldn’t even see the poets, but they were completely engaged. The poets onstage were ones that you wouldn’t normally see share a space.

So a big part of what you want to do through CityLit is mix it up and bring unity.
Exactly. We want to put page poets on the same stage with spoken word artists and see the synergy that takes place. On our CityLit Stage [at Baltimore Book Festival], we had Guggenheim fellow Deborah Rudacille on the same stage as an award-winning author from West Baltimore, Devin Allen, and it was live! We want to get the young involved and to represent all voices. I can’t begin to tell you how much we lean in to recognize whose voice isn’t in the room. People are hungry to see themselves and their cultures reflected. And if people are hungry, you feed them! We realize that bridging the literary and the academic communities could have an even greater impact, but that’s just the start.

Do you think the literary arts are underrepresented in the larger arts scene?
Across the country, people wholly value the performing and visual arts. When it comes to literary arts, it’s as if we’re speaking another language to get appropriate funding. And yet everyone is moved by the power of story. Reading and writing serve you for life. When you place a pen in someone’s hand and teach them the art of writing, you are giving them a voice and a reason. These last 14 years, CityLit has done its best to share talent from our region and from the larger literary community. I’m talking Claudia Rankine, George Saunders, Junot Diaz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We always talk about the fine arts, and I’m like, people, do you know how literary arts can transform you?

On that note, this year’s CityLit Festival lineup is huge. What are some of the highlights for you this year?
We’re bringing back the one-on-one editorial sessions. They started last year and filled up quickly. We’re trying to grow writers as well as readers. We will also offer a 90-minute master class. We realized there are a lot of amazing learning institutions here in Baltimore, but they’re so costly, people simply can’t attend, and we wanted to make learning the craft accessible.  

When choosing the festival’s speakers, what are some of the things that you take into consideration?
Part of my job at CityLit and my work [for the MSAC] is to point out that we need to change whose narratives we showcase, so we don’t leave people out of the conversation. To me, this year’s theme is  “We are still here”—meaning you can’t afford to ignore who’s in your community. That knowledge brings gifts. We know for a fact that Maryland is going to be an emerging majority state by 2020—that’s two years from now. If you know that’s happening, if you know that you have 63 percent African Americans in Baltimore, you have to change the way you do business.

It feels like an important time for CityLit Project.
We’re really working overtime to build our capacity and our partnerships. Right now, we’re small with big dreams. We envision a lot of things, but we need more funding and a larger staff. We’ve just become a grantee of the [Robert W.] Deutsch Foundation; they’ll help us cover operating costs, to keep us thriving. We now have an office—well, a desk—here at the Motor House on the second floor. My gosh—Amy Sherald’s on our floor. Amy Sherald! . . . To me, we can’t afford to be quiet anymore about what we need and who we serve. We have to be very loud, or we go away. And we’re not trying to go away these days. More and more communities need a voice, and we hope to represent.

Gregg Wilhelm, founder of Baltimore’s CityLit Project, and Gerry LaFemina, author and associate professor at Frostburg State College, thought they were on to something when they brainstormed an idea for a poetry anthology based on the punk band The Clash’s album London Calling. Wilhelm talks to us about the process, and why the album still resonates.

How did you come up with the idea for Clash by Night?
Gerry and I have been friends for a while . . . We met (up) in Frederick, and, as often conversations tend to go when you’re having a few beers, we thought, you know, “If you could do an anthology that covered an album, what would it be?” We were just shooting the sh*t, just riffing on ideas, and we both said this one, London Calling. So we said, “Let’s do it.” But then life gets in the way, [but] two-and-a-half years later, we finally have it. Gerry is a poet, so he put the call out, and I reached out to a few poets from Baltimore. Submissions came in in the summer 2013. We accepted maybe two-thirds of the poems that got submitted.

Why do you think it was London Calling that came to both of you at the same time?
It’s this seminal album in my teenage years. I’m a little bit younger . . . I probably discovered it in the early 1980s. Gerry also . . . he grew up in New York, was in punk rock bands in New York and still plays. For the benefit of all involved, I walked away from music at the age of 17, but I was in a punk band. Baltimore had a great hard-core punk scene back when I was a kid. A lot of my friends weren’t really into the British scene, but I was. It was just that album—everybody has that album. And part of what we want for the series is to now turn it over to other editorial pairs and ask, “What was that album for you?”

Did the poets who responded have the same kind of connection with the album?
Yeah, totally. I think that’s what makes the poetry so visceral. We have some pretty young poets in there as well, but I also think that speaks to the enduring legacy of this particular album. It’s four sides, it was a double album, which was pretty audacious for the time. It was right at a time when they were evolving. It’s very political, there’s a lot of reggae in it, they were experimenting musically, and I think it’s just so much a metaphor for what life is like when you’re [a teenager]. You’re experimenting with things, you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin, you’re trying new ideas, you’re embracing new philosophies, you’re trying to branch out. You’re rising up against the status quo, whether that is your current local or federal political situation, or your parents, your religious of philosophical ideals. I think it really resonates with everybody, and 20, 25 years later, it still resonates. You can still point back to hearing the first chords of that first track on that first side. And how the hair on the back of your neck still stands up today thinking about it.

How did you select who was going to write about each track?
That was totally organic. In fact, there were one or two tracks that didn’t have any submissions. A lot of people were writing about “London Calling” the track, or “Train in Vain.” We did then reach out to some specific people and said, “Don’t force it, but think about the track and if something authentic comes forth we’ll consider it.” It’s 174 pages, so it’s going to feel pretty substantial.

Did you give the poets any direction?
No. That’s why you’ll see prose poems, short poems, long poems. The lineation is varied, the stanza breaks are varied. I don’t recall if there was any particular form that anyone wrote in . . . no, there’s a sonnet, a Liszt sonnet. But we weren’t necessarily looking to represent each of the formal forms of poetry.

Was there anything that surprised you while working on the anthology?
It’s probably been 25 years since I had such a connection of community with this particular album . . . my musical preferences were so different from my parents and my siblings . . . growing up in the ’70s, it was all Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. And even amongst my friends who gravitated towards the hard-core punk scene here in Baltimore, it was a different kind of punk and not the British-generated punk. So even within that subculture I was still listening to different kinds of music with the headphones on, sheltering out the outside world by myself . . . it was very much a solitary experience. So what surprised me most about working on this book is that there are so many people out there that felt similar about the album as I did and still do to this day. It’s almost a way to vicariously have that community that I didn’t have 25 years ago when I encountered the album for the first time . . . I’m grown now and quasi-mature and it sort of reaffirms that I wasn’t the sort of odd-ball kid you think you were at the moment, when you’re 15. You have some sort of affirmation all those years later that there were other odd-ball kids who were going through what you were going through, with their headphones on.

Were you expecting to feel that way? Did you have any expectations going into the project?
Not necessarily. It is a seminal album, it’s not an obscure album. Most people who were not ever into that scene know about The Clash and know about the songs. I mean, my gosh, songs like “Train in Vain” and even as late as “Rock the Casbah,” they’re the background music now. You’ve had those moments when the song that’s meant so much to you is being re-purposed to sell cars or watches, and you’re like “Oh my God, I can’t believe it.” That’s also what’s going to make this particular book of interest because it is such a recognizable, iconic piece of music. Even those who weren’t neck-deep in the mosh pit back in the day, there’s going to be a level of familiarity. And it will transcend, like all good writing should. I wasn’t there in the heyday, but it transcended to my experience in the mosh pit on Eutaw Street in the early 1980s and it will transcend to the kid in the 1990s listening to Nirvana in Seattle. We all had that moment with “the band” came along for you, right? And for our generation, because this was the first of such bands, it will resonate with people who were standing there as 15-year-olds listening to Kurt Cobain.

In terms of the future of this project, how do you foresee that happening?
We don’t have any other proposals at this point. This book has information about how to go about proposing an idea, so I think we’ll get proposals after it comes out. Gerry and I have right-of-refusal sort of power. If someone were to propose an anthology based on a Chicago album or the Moody Blues, we might be like, “Ehh.” But it could be The Beatles, which I was never really into. Well, The Beatles might be…

A little cliché?
Yeah, I think you’re right . . . If you make the case that the album was important to you and to a generation of people, I think we would seriously consider it.

The Oldest Living Things in the World
Rachel Sussman (The University of Chicago Press)

This is my favorite photography book of the past year—in part, because it’s so well written. As the title suggests, Sussman, a Baltimore native, found and photographed the oldest continuously living things on the planet, all of them at least 2,000 years old. From underground forests in South Africa to map lichens in Greenland, she produces fascinating images. Bonus: Sussman’s narrative of her travels is equally compelling.

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Geo-Poe
Various Contributors (CityLit Project/Eight Stone Press)

Geo-Poe originated as a geo-caching scavenger hunt in which 14 Poe-inspired stories were hidden in canisters around the city. Clues were given via social media, and Poe fans went looking, but some canisters proved hard to find, while others were stolen. This publication remedies the original project’s shortcomings by gathering all the stories into an easily findable zine format. I especially enjoyed Dean Bartoli Smith’s unexpected foray into local sports history.