A Conversation with DANIEL GRAY-KONTAR
Ali Black of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center sat down for a two-part interview with Daniel Gray-Kontar. Please enjoy this conversation and stay tuned for more soon!
A Quick Catch Up
AB: So what’s been up with Twelve?
DGK: The short answer is that Twelve is evolving. We started out as being an ecosystem for writers of color—here and ultimately, nationwide. We’re still that but our role is changing to where we’re going into communities and engaging communities in the process of storytelling so that those stories can be coded and presented to city architects and city planners and be directly transformed into policy. That never entered my mind as a thing and somehow we’ve just evolved as that. And it makes sense because ‘you’re a literary arts organization and you’re all about storytelling so help us tell stories so that we know what people really want.’ So, in the middle of this pandemic we’ve really transformed into this community engagement organization and it’s beyond community engagement—it’s capturing the stories of every day folk and transforming it into public policy.
AB: How do you feel about the evolution?
DGK: We really had to have a conversation about whether or not this is mission creep for us or if it’s just a natural evolution and I think it’s a natural evolution to who and what we are. We’re evolving and I’m evolving. I don’t know what I’m evolving into, but I love the work that we’re doing. However, I do feel increasingly like less of an artist.
AB: Really? That doesn’t sound good. What do you mean by that? You don’t have time to work on your work?
DGK: I’m trying to find time to work on it and I need to find time to work on it, but I don’t feel like I’m able to put into it what I used to. In the next decade or so I’ll be doing something different and if I’m blessed to be around when I’m in my 60s I’ll go back to the art, but right now I don’t think it’s my season.
On Cleveland’s Literary Arts Scene
AB: I don’t want to have the “everything is fine and great in Cleveland’s literary art world” conversation. Most of what I’ve read about the Cleveland literary scene has been fairly positive. How do you feel about it? Do you agree that it’s thriving?
DGK: I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m not sure if it’s a place where writers should move to yet, but I think we’re on our way. I think we’re much better now than I’ve ever seen. I should start by saying I’ve been here as a literary artist for thirty years now.
When I first started as a writer it felt impossible for me to be a writer here, to earn a living as a writer, and to even get a literary agent without having to move to New York. As a result, I never put the time into my writing—I was never afforded that opportunity. I had to become a journalist. I had to teach. But it was never ‘I can be a writer and I can get an agent that can support my process.’ Five years ago, the literary arts was not even thought of as an art form for funders. There was no funding stream for creative writing; it did not exist. So, I had to fight for that. And now, five to seven years later, the literary arts is unquestionably perceived as an art form—particularly when it comes to funding. So, there’s that.
Also, the diversity of literary arts organizations and of writers has grown. It’s very impressive for a city our size. I’m also seeing that organizations like Lit Cleveland, under their new leadership, have really begun to tackle racial equity. There’s a lot of diversity and there’s more opportunity than I’ve ever seen.
And what’s also interesting: when I step outside of my genre, I’m seeing that we are actually more unified than we think. The literary arts, the organizations, are more unified than some others, which is very interesting. There are lots of partnerships happening and a lot of information sharing. If we continue to nurture that it will make me feel comfortable to say writers should move here—as long as writers and literary organizations continue to create an authentic network.
AB: How did this growth happen?
DGK: First of all, this social protest moment, which has been bubbling for some years now, has really demanded that (particularly in the arts) we look at structures. We’re living in a moment that has been evolving over the course of the last three to four years where folks are really starting to think about equity in the arts and racial equity period. Some boards are looking at how they need to become more inclusive at the board level and not just at the staff level. And I’m not saying we’re there. I’m saying the conversations are beginning to happen in an authentic way. The leadership of a lot of organizations is starting to think about racial equity. We have to think about everything through the prism of racial equity. We have to. The way we’ve been thinking about funding has been racist and it has to change.
AB: But it shouldn’t take this long and it shouldn’t be this hard for folks to figure out racial equity.
DGK: Part of it is because we don’t have a lot of us and I’m speaking specifically Cleveland. We haven’t been able to attract talent and we lose a lot of talent every year. My job at Twelve Literary Arts is to endeavor to develop an ecosystem that starts with young people who are fourteen years old and goes up to folks who are mid-career. I’m seeking to develop young people and I think we do a great job but we lose them and they’re not coming back. We’re developing these leaders here and we’re trying to keep them but we can’t. They are leaving.
AB: Why are they leaving?
DGK: That’s a great question. I can tell you what they’re saying. A lot of them they feel as though there’s so much trauma here and they need to experience something else. It’s cold and dark here and the people are often not very pleasant or nice. And there’s a lot of violence. And there’s so much trauma that is steeped in a family and folks feel like, ‘I need to get away from this darkness that is in my family and that is around my hood. I just need to see something else. I need to get to a place where people are thinking differently—where they’re thinking more expansively. I need to get to a more literate culture. A more literate city.’ They feel like they have to get out.
So, being an ecosystem means we are developing young people who are becoming leaders elsewhere and they can say that they are from here and we’ve been a part of that narrative of helping them grow and develop into the people that they are.
I start by saying that because of the numbers and our bright minds not staying here. We need them, but they’re not staying. Part of why this is such a heavy lift for us is because we’re far outnumbered.
AB: How do we get to where we need to be?
DGK: You can’t make artists want to become arts administrators, but I do think that we need to nurture (here in Cleveland) the capacity and the opportunity to become one—to introduce that as a possible path for a person. I think part of the question is how are we nurturing Black and brown folk to become arts administrators and to ultimately become executive artistic directors or executive directors? Also, how are we doing the work of introducing to young people at a very early age the necessity of sitting on boards and introducing them to organizations that are looking for board members? And how do we change the narrative about what it means to be a board member? How are we beginning to nurture our best and brightest so that they understand that they should be thinking about sitting on boards now in their 20s? And how are we getting organizations to understand that they must listen to young voices of color at the board level?
I’m very sensitive to this because do you know that from where I sit I think I might be the only executive director of color in Cleveland who is from here. I might be the only one. How is that possible? This is why anytime anyone calls me and says they want to start a nonprofit…I’m like, I’m here! Whatever you need! Let’s make it go!
Daniel Gray-Kontar is the founder and Executive Artistic Director of Twelve Literary Arts and has worked as an advocate for social transformation in the city of Cleveland for more than 25 years. Gray-Kontar is an education consultant for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the former chair of the Literary Arts Department at the Cleveland School of the Arts; and a former graduate school fellow at UC Berkeley’s College of Education. His work in arts education has been showcased on PBS Newshour, The UK Guardian, NPR, and the Christian Science Monitor.
Gray-Kontar has lectured at universities, public schools, arts organizations and scholarly conferences across the US. His Ted Talk discussing youth leadership in public school education has affected the ways public school administrators think about the inclusion of youth and their families in the process of re-making school cultures and curricula. He is the proud father of his daughter Paloma Manning-Gray
Ali Black is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize for her poem “Kinsman.” Her work has appeared in December, jubilat, LitHub, The Offing and elsewhere. Her first book of poetry, If It Heals At All was selected by Jaki Shelton Green for the New Voices series at Jacar Press.