Orinda author relives youth with 1960s 'Birmingham' volumeBy Janice De Jesus
In mid-1950s Alabama, where Entrekin was raised, boys weren't encouraged to embrace the arts. "The thought was that writing poetry was for sissies," Entrekin said. But rather than be intimidated by those who scorned the notion of boys creating art, Entrekin embraced poetry. During his adolescence, when Entrekin — the oldest of six children — helped care for his siblings when his mother was sick and often clashed with his father, poetry became his outlet. "I began to question authority before questioning authority became popular," Entrekin said. "Poetry was the best way to get in touch with yourself." It was the questioning of authority, coupled with the expressing of oneself through language, that ultimately led Entrekin to writing his first novel, "Red Mountain: Birmingham, Alabama, 1965." Set during the tumultuous early 1960s — from the civil rights movements to the anti-war campaigns — the book tells the story of how two young people in love coped with the changes and struggles of living in the South. Entrekin first started the novel in 1969. "Then I stuck it in a drawer for 35 years and got it out five years ago," said the Orinda resident. "It took four years of rewriting." The author will discuss his book at 3 p.m. Saturday at Orinda Books. "It was very hard to get started on it again, but once I got started it was like time travel. I woke up in this other world and basically had to relive it," said Entrekin, who founded the creative writing program at John F. Kennedy University, during its Orinda campus days. "Red Mountain," a fictional account of Entrekin's own experiences living in Alabama in the early 1960s, is told through a thread of three voices — the point-of-view of Eddie, the young protagonist; his wife's diary; and epigraphs depicting the events of that period. "People were not wanting to see, then suddenly when they woke up, they were faced with a dilemma — do they ignore it or face it?" said Entrekin, who was managing editor of the Berkeley Poets Cooperative and the Berkeley Poets Workshop and Press. "If you're alive, awake and thinking, you can wake up and see what's going on around your culture and begin to question it." Entrekin, who taught various educational levels for several years, including teaching preschool language skills to, disadvantaged children through the Head Start Program in Birmingham, Ala., said his own children were his motivation for writing the novel. "I wanted them to know about this time and the lessons I learned," he said. |
ORINDA — Charles Entrekin developed a love of poetry at a time and place when boys and poetry weren't considered a good mix.