An Interview with
Grandmaster Hogan

Your first book, There Was A Time:  A Journey into Black and White with Taz gets it’s title from the African-American heritage poem, There Was A Time.  The book includes other poems that deal with other issues—other lessons in life.  You teach martial arts and work with students on a weekly basis.  Do you ever use your poetry as a teaching tool?

When I write my poetry, I try to present a “verbal video” of what I’m trying to communicate.  Everything I write isn’t about being “black” or dealing with slavery.  One of the things I learned from my grandmother is to use common sense.  I carry that idea over to my martial arts training as I developed my own style.  I adopted the motto, “Never Underestimate, Never Overrate”.  I try not to underestimate anyone in life.  I try not to put anyone up on a pedestal.  Some people are so engrossed in learning that they fail to see the small pitfalls in life, the dog poop or the potholes.  My grandmother always said, “Book learning is good, but common sense is better.” 

May I ask you about another poem in There Was A Time called Old Cemetery Road?

Yes.  In Old Cemetery Road, the people were only free spiritually.  At that time, before emancipation, black people were not allowed to congregate without the presence of a white person.  They were POWs.  They were not free.  The only way that they could achieve true freedom was through death.  Today we have the opportunity to be free both spiritually and physically.  We are still working and dying, but there is more opportunity for achievement—to obtain true satisfaction in life.  On the other hand, the enemies that threaten to take our freedoms today are things like drugs and black-on-black crime.  That is why I try to teach martial arts skills and instill values that help students to stay alive and reach their full potential.

What advice would you give to a young person for success in life?

I think that every young person should get as much education as they possibly can.  Along with education, should go communication.  They should strive to have the best communication skills they can possibly have.  Then, like my grandmother would say, use plain common sense.  I would also emphasize the importance of family.  Talk to family members.  Ask them "Why do I do this?" and  "Why do I have this or that skill that no one else seems to have."  Realize what inside your culture has brought that out.  When you begin to understand who you are, then you can realize the freedom and status you were meant to achieve. Finally, I think it is very important for young people to be in touch with their church, their religion.  A person’s faith is what bonds everything together. 

Read the poem There Was A Time.

More questions and answers to come.

• Winter, 2003