From The Background

by Devin Wright

The rules were simple “it had to rhyme” and “it had to make sense” for an entire generation introduced to what they deemed to be relevant literature through hip-hop. Decades later, the remnants of what they were initially struggling to do while writing their first rhymes, can still be seen in their poetry, and even in some of their prose. Devin Wright is of this generation. From The Background is comprised of work that defines who he has been, how he has developed into who he is, and the work that helped him to develop the protagonist in In The Background. Initially, From The Background was an afterthought, only compiled to be a companion to In The Background to increase in the revelation of the main character, because there is indeed no shortage of poets, poetry, or poetry books. While it still is well suited for that purpose, it had to also become more than the book of poems it began as. It had to become a meaningful contribution to the literary world, and in doing his best to achieve this, instead of stopping at this work just being a reference for his first novel, he also allowed it to be a reference to he himself as he made his transition from hip-hop, through poetry, and to prose.

From his earliest pieces, to his latest, from his narratives, to his commentaries, from his hip-hop to his short stories, and even from:


Eat, sleep, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die.
Set out on quests for soul searching and only end up fault finding.
Non experience, eye blinding... and experiences, ties binding,
time winding waiting for only whomsoever controls divine timing,
Unless it’s something known, the punk syndrome... most deny trying,
the famous comfort zone, the slump and moan of all those minds dying...

to:

Inner war, in a war, as my feet glide... Struck by an impulse I can’t ignore,
the prison of living within a law, unnatural, as my feet glide...
Thinking of death as if this is what men are for, they toss the rain, as my feet glide,
across this harsh terrain, do I.... march with sin or Lord?
How much of my soul can my will afford, or... am I in debt to a higher purpose?
Will there be a loss or gain and if in the end I’m scorned, am I ready to see God?
Blessed are those... so, am I, pure at heart of vain?
In fear of the divine, even at times the winners mourn...


This compilation is a spectrum of what this author considers to be thoughtful, well composed, and worth sharing.

140 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2010

About the author

Preferring the term artist to writer, Devin Wright feels at home in many of the arts. Artistic expression can connect people, inspire people, and too, it can inform, all while liberating the artist with the invitation of others into the privacy of their ideas, if they accept them. He's been an artist for more than two decades, with no formal training beyond working alongside other artists like himself, and lots and lots of practice. If he is exposed to something he likes, and he has to capacity to understand the science behind it, he'll try to do it himself and hopefully do it even better than his example. This curiosity has propelled him from one genre to another, over the years, and makes him a good example for the power in self-education and desire.

The literary arts are his favorite, in verse, script, or in prose, because, for him, nothing creates a more intimate connection between minds better than the written word. He began to first take writing seriously with his work in verse writing hip-hop and finding an audience in the blooming spoken word scene. From verse, he moved into script, just trying to find a way to say more than he'd been able to in poetry, a poetry that within a couple of years had gotten too complex for the spoken word audience. Having a strong narrative quality was always his strength, so he would just change the format and focus on dialogue. Easier said than done, but with study and practice, he was confidently writing shorts, and eventually Secondhands, his first feature length script.

Secondhands is about self-discovery, a psychological coming of age tale. The conversations between these flawed, yet perfect, patrons in a small tavern, are both intelligent and humorous. It is a trip to a local bar, an escape; sometimes though, in an attempt to lose themselves, people find themselves. Devin's motivation was to write something outside of the norm as far as his culture and age was concerned. Urban movies (it began as screenplay) lacked depth, in his opinion, and this is the reason he dubbed Secondhands a "uniquely" urban experience as he wanted it reflect more of his experience, and many like himself, that didn't fit the popularly accepted urban stereotypes. What he saw in the works of others compared to what he actually experienced, also affected how he would write his female characters.

Creating and completing Secondhands opened up a world that Devin, in his own admittance, will probably never be able to close, and just as he'd found verse to be limiting, so was writing in script. All throughout the process of writing in script, he would have to edit out so much character thought and scene description that truly hadn't a place in that genre and it eventually pushed him to writing serious prose. Three years after completing Secondhands, he sat down to write his first novel, In The Background, which took months to write but years to edit - with study and lots and lots of practice.

In The Background deeply interrogates the idea of self discovery, where Secondhands, restricted by genre and time, could only go so far, and that that can be lost in the voices of many, can be found in the voice of one. Where Secondhands could be simply seen as a case study of self, In The Background places self on the operating table and the audience gets to see what it is made of down to its smallest parts, political, social, familial, and even sexual. In The Background does a wonderful job in showing how much Devin had matured, not only as a writer, but as a human, from one work to the other, because the work itself says so much about him.

For over twenty years from the humbleness of the same inner city surroundings that have both reared him and have acted as his inspiration, Devin has been an artist. The social impact and the potential of the arts have been his focus, as he offers a remedy to the business of art - mass produced and often irresponsible works produced by the solely profit driven corporate