Each month TimBookTu will interview a writer, poet, essayist or other person to get their thoughts, ideas, advice, comments, or whatever they have to say about writing, poetry, publishing, or other topics that may relate to the written word and the African-American experience.

For July, TimBookTu has been very blessed to have an outstanding poet, Zamounde Allie, as one of it's main contributors. Zamounde, also known as the "Foot-stepper" has been very supportive of TimBookTu and other poets. He has helped nurture other poets and give them a gentle nudge when needed. His poetry and writings offer very profound and thoughtful insights on a variety of subjects. They have ranged from love, frustration, and racism, to the environment, joy, happiness, and society.

TimBookTu: First, tell me about your nickname "the Foot-stepper." How did you obtain that name?

Zamounde: I consider myself a foot-soldier of life, and that is what I tell everyone day after day. One day I wrote a poem with my circle member taharka called “Young Gifted & Atoned” for a youth rally we were involved with one summer. To make a long story short one of my lines mentioned footstepping, and taharka framed it on me during one of our radio shows. I later put the definition of “footstepping” to terms coining it with the definition of stepping on poetical lines because metrical lines in poetry are measured in feet of syllabic stresses.

TimBookTu: In your bio, it mentions that you are a native of Detroit and you now live near Little Rock, Arkansas. What influence do you think these places have had on your life and your poetry?

Zamounde: Detroit caused me to seriously think, like any other crowded city does because you’re constantly forced to make quick decisions. Dealing with a multitude of attitudes, and cultures all clashing together in what they call a city. Little Rock is where it all came out vocally for me. I use to write, but never recite. I wanted so much to be heard, but my voice was choked up in me until one day it just started flowing. I think all those years of choking up was meant to be because I passed up the loose lip stage in my life. I want to have meaning in my words now, not to just sound good.

TimBookTu: Tell me more about your years growing up.

Zamounde: I'm still growing. My past is like an enemy to my present, and a friend to my future. I feel that I was wronged by having to come into the world where I did. I remember everything from age four on up to now; I wish that my thoughts could convey images to put on a VCR tape. That would be a trip. That's the only way that I could package my time growing up entirely to explain. My family had the most influence on my life growing up, good and bad.

My father suffers from epilepsy and really went on some crazy trips off those drugs from the seventies. I remember him chasing all of us out of the house with a rifle. That did not scare me as much as the time I went to stay with him some years later after I attacked my mother's boyfriend with a bat for hitting on my brother. My father's foot was busted open and bleeding badly, and even though I knew he wasn't in his right mind I stayed to help him. He kept mumbling all types of senseless words, and I kept saying "Dad your foot is bleeding." Eventually he let me bandage it and I went in to the room for a minute. There was this twenty-two rifle behind the door. I thought for a second and decided that I was going to unload it, hide it or something. My father jumped up and ran over to where I was standing, took the gun and started sounding off like some drill sergeant looking at me with a serious lost look on his face. I weighed my options and decided to work my way slowly to the apartment door. I was so pumped up with fear and adrenaline and confusion. That's when he started counting off from ten, nine,...and before he could say seven I was out the door, down the hall, up the stairs, down the alley, and over to my Grandma's house seven blocks away in a mind-second.

I was so upset I couldn’t speak. Everyone was asking me what was wrong. I later explained to them, but it was something that everyone was use to. My uncle said "I told you to come on, nephew." I went out later with my Grandma, a couple of aunts and uncles and got high and drunk.

My father went to court with me a couple of months later because my mother's boyfriend had pressed charges against me. I had mixed thoughts in court. Here I was only fifteen or so standing in a courtroom with a charge against me, and my charge against him (He got in one punch before the bat reached him). The attorneys, if that's what you would like to call them, did their routine, showed pictures of my blackeye etc....The judge ruled in my favor.

During the bus ride home I could not help but to reflect on my life. Why me? I love my father, but he's a serious Dr. Jeckel, and Mr. Hyde. He taught me a lot, and always had us in books that at that time I felt was too hard for us. I saw him as a Muslim, a Christian, and Catholic, self-ordained, and all types of stuff. We were always in the house reading when we should have been outside playing (summertime) I heard that the modern medicine is a whole lot better now for epilepsy.

If I was to sum it all up crazy would be the word. I watched as our family structure slowly dissipated. I refuse to have my children go through that stuff. I'll work till I drop to get one extra skip and a hop.

TimBookTu: When did you first start writing poetry?

Zamounde: In my dreams. I feel that I am someone else, and my thoughts are that of someone in my ancestry, because what I dream and write feels so real. I had trained my body to wake up and hold on to dreams until I could write them down. The rest is left to an active imagination.

TimBookTu: Was there any one event in your life that made you start writing?

Zamounde: I ran out of tears. "Crying won't solve a thang" a lot of people say. I interpret it as we must express our happiness and troubles in words and on paper, for a tear will only dissipate.

TimBookTu: Tell me more about your job and family. How do they impact your writing?

Zamounde: I hate my job (jokingly), and love my family. Family life situations make good poem starters for me. I never really tried to connect them too much. I just write down what comes to me. (I know that I didn't answer your question in full).

TimBookTu: You had a book of poetry published a few years ago entitled As the World Burns. How did that book come about and what were your experiences getting it published?

Zamounde: My Grandmother (mother's side) who was a mother to the whole family had passed away. I started asking a lot of questions in my head; I was tripping hard. I kept saying that I wanted something for my children that would be a permanent document of who I was and who I wanted to be, and what I thought about the world. It was my last, but first step so to speak. I went into it with no regards for financial return. (Most of them are now in my closet) I simply wanted to record my feelings. I paid a car note sum for a couple of years to publish it. I've wasted more money on nothing in a shorter period of time. It was my thoughts placed in concrete. No matter where I am tomorrow, or how I will turn out it was my life thoughts up to that point documented. In some eyes it was a failure, but to me it was a stepping stone. There are some very powerful insights in that book.

I don't like the route (subsidy) that I took now looking back, but I do not regret publishing the book. I did however go through a serious bout of depression, and frustration, but somehow, some of my best work evolved. It forced me to seriously look at the world of publishing for what it was. Someone wanting to sell you to the world like an orange, or a banana; something to eat before it spoils. You however, desire to be canned and well preserved. I don't like that way of doing things.

I'd rather self-publish and push my work at my own pace with no sell-by date. If I get published in the future it will not be to get pimped like a commodity. What value do you hold for your own work? That is the question that only you can answer. I feel premature at this moment in time, and will continue to receive more nutrients for a greater harvest. For what it is worth I have put more money in "you" than I have in "me." "Each one teach..." with life's degree.

TimBookTu: You are presently working with a radio show in Little Rock called "Sankofa Perspectives." Tell me more about the show and what your role is.

Zamounde: We are now The SanKofa Circle. I’ve worked with some great people on this show. Regular people like you and me just trying to do something for a positive change. The show is full of creativity and is centered around poetry with music, skits, and whatever else we can do to spark talk, change, and renovation in the mind. Our main focus is to create an avenue for up and coming, known and unknown poets to express themselves, and to encourage, and create a better market for a long standing art form that has withstood the changing of times.

We are not a part of the normal radio/poetry genre; we kick it with an Afri-centric twist of 100,000 watts of pure poetic power. I was asked last year by a member of the original Sankofa Poets (Little Rock), who was at that time still a member, to come on a show that was just created. I recited a couple of poems, and attended some meetings, and was later asked to join the show. I was given five minutes for whatever I wanted to do, and this is where I developed the Sankofa Seeds segment.

My involvement with the show's improvement has always been 100% despite the hardships and trials we've been through. We'd observed everyone's contribution and put it to the group as an organized format. We all put forth what we could to complete the circle, and those who could not produce by their own choice or life situations stepped away. I still value their contributions. (Terrence Bolden, Dideshe', DJ Benu, Stacey "Akili" James, and Pyslence). We must do what we must. It's funny how so little can turn in to a lot when you put forth an effort.

TimBookTu: As one of the more prolific poets featured on TimBookTu, you are probably the only one who co-writes poetry with others. Tell me how you go about accomplishing this and how receptive are your co-writers?

Zamounde: We live in a "me-me" society. I like doing poems with other people. It all started with Jamal's [Sharif] e-mail conversations on the cyber tip, but I was already "coolaborating" with other poets in my group as well as others like Danielle Walton, and just carried that concept over to TimBookTu. [Visit his collaboration with Jamal and Danielle]

Certain people that I come in contact with just flow naturally. A couple of people commented on poems that were already done, and I offered them the same. I think it is mostly because I like their style, the heart in their words, or just simply the creative spontaneity. A subject is picked and some lines are wrote, and it is sent back and forth until both poets are satisfied with the outcome.

TimBookTu: You have also encouraged others that you meet to write and to also send their work to TimBookTu or other poetic outlets. Why do you feel this is important?

Zamounde: I know how I felt a long time ago. You only grow by letting go of your inhibitions. You don't have to be a star to shine is one of my favorite sayings, and it is true. I feel that it is important to encourage people to follow their heart and not their pockets when it comes to art/expression.

TimBookTu: You recently spent several months in Italy. Was that an experience that gave you new poetic ideas or insights?

Zamounde: No, and yes. Yes, because I wrote fifty poems while over there, and I must say that I had grown considerably only because I continued to express myself regardless of the language barrier. All the other times I had been abroad I just wrote words on paper and that is where it stayed. Italy was the first time that I had kicked it publicly in a foreign place. I was involved with some brotha's and sista's over there, and we collectively put on a celebration of Afrikan history in February with songs, dancing, poems, history "did you know?", and a group of Afrikan-Afrikan drummers played the spirits. I did a poem in Rome at the Vatican square as people passed by. I was compelled to speak my mind.

No, because at that time I was already changing and adding new poetic ideas; it only gave me time to incorporate them.

TimBookTu: Any other places that have had an impact?

Zamounde: When I was in Afrika, I was so overwhelmed by the energy that I'd felt..."This is my homeland" I thought, and did a lot of reflecting. I really found it a trip because I had read (M.E.S) Malcolm X's autobiography. I could hear his words flowing through my mind as I'd saw what he saw with my own eyes. I remember the people greeting me in such a manner that I had never experienced in America. I felt that they were sincere, and not just being politically polite. I also saw the troubles that they experienced. I later wrote poems with bits and pieces of that experience, I have a painting which captured the artistic expression of my thoughts called B.A.P Basic Afri-centric Pride which is also a poem in As The World Burns.

TimBookTu: You recently wrote on the TimBookTu Discussion Board that you contact each writer and give them feedback on their poetry. Why do you feel this is important and what were the writer's responses?

Zamounde: If I read their poem and it strikes me, than I feel it is only common courtesy to let them know. A lot of times the title of a poem strikes me, or knowing what that person last wrote draws me to a poem, or poet. Some poems just slap me the instant I start reading, while others have to marinate. I'll get to them later in time. I feel it is important to let people know what you think of their work because it's a plus in a world full of the minus. Most people respond like I do with a thank you, and a returned shout out.

TimBookTu: Do you have any advice you would offer other aspiring poets?

Zamounde: You can try to be someone else and you might just succeed, but it is a whole lot easier to just be from what becomes of your own seed. Keep writing down your thoughts and ideas and let them work out like paint on a canvas. Sometimes you can't make sense out of it, but with time it may blend naturally with something else; especially when things happen in the world around you. You are the recorders of life from a personal perspective; a lot different from what the historians will document.

TimBookTu: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Zamounde: Yes. No matter what the present circumstance we can overcome them by words/action. Your words become if not yours, someone’s action towards change. Look at history, and apply it to the future. I was born in a slum, and many of you were too, but not our mind's and spirit. We must be truthful in order to change the world, for to cover it up will only lengthen the painful times. When you smile more oxygen goes to the brain. I think Timbooktu is a great opportunity for many to connect in a positive manner for the coming of a new generation of people.

Thanks to all the people who have had a positive effect on the world, and those like you to come.

If you would like a copy of Zamounde's book of poetry, As the World Burns, send your check or money order for $6.95 to:

Note: To send an audio of your poem, write to the following address: