VOICESRISING

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VOICESRISING

Edited byG.Winston James

and Other Countries

WASHINGTON, DCwww.redbonepress.com

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BLACK LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER WRITING

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Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual andTransgender Writing (Other Countries Volume III)

Copyright © 2007 by G. Winston James and Other Countries

Individual selections copyright © by their respective author(s)

Published by:RedBone PressP.O. Box 15571Washington, DC 20003

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmittedin any form or by any means without permission in writing from thepublisher, except in the case of reviews.

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First edition

Cover photograph copyright © 1997 by G. Winston JamesCover design by D’Mon McNeilBook design by Eunice Corbin

Permissions acknowledgments begin on page 576Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-9786251-3-9ISBN-10: 0-9786251-3-7ISSN: 0893-8296

www.redbonepress.com

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“Our history is each other. That is our only guide.”—James Baldwin, Just Above My Head

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contentsxi Prefacexvii Introduction by Dorothy Randall Gray

1 kumasi by Eva Yaa Asantewaa4 hips ’n’ ass by Eva Yaa Asantewaa6 Sojourner: an abandoned manifest by Colin Robinson12 Learning to Speak Heterosexual by Robert E. Penn30 My Boy by Laura A. Harris40 A House in the World by Shawn Stewart Ruff57 Sons (excerpt) by Alphonso Morgan81 Ridge 479 by J.E. Robinson89 Bees by Curú Necos-Bloice119 nothin’ ugly fly by Marvin K. White122 Dreams by Ayodele Christopher Dana Rose125 first anniversary of my brother’s death by Letta Neely126 Cycles by Barbara Stephen132 west coast east by Carlton Elliott Smith135 Nothing Looks the Same in the Light

by Reginald Shepherd136 All of This and Nothing by Reginald Shepherd137 Unfinished Work by Colin Robinson144 the dancer by Gina Rhodes145 Fourteen by Mistinguette146 No, I Haven’t Heard. by Antonia Randolph148 Après Midi a Isabel’s: Deux by Alexis De Veaux149 Going Down Bluff Road by John Frazier150 Living to Live Again by Tony Ray Brown163 Come Mourning by Christopher Adams175 No Beauty Is Native to Us by John R. Keene194 Flint: The Story of Sean and Floyd

by Cary Alan Johnson213 Curtis by Ernest Hardy218 Infidelity by Bruce Morrow

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235 PATH by G. Winston James240 A View from Flatbush by G. Winston James241 Miss Agnes’ Middle Son Was Mine by Duncan E. Teague243 I’m Slipping by Warren Adams II245 In the Silent Bathroom #2 by Warren Adams II246 Native American Hustler on Greyhound

by Jerry Thompson247 Suicidal Ideation by Michelle Sewell248 Dead Man Song by malik m.l. williams250 Gravity by Duriel E. Harris251 Blood, Prayer & Tears: 2002 A.D. by Ernest Hardy254 It Begins by malik m.l. williams256 flashes—cyan/magenta/yellow by francine j. harris259 A Moontale Spun by Gale Jackson272 Bearing Fruit by Letta Neely273 untitled by Carlton Elliott Smith274 haiku for the million (black) women march,

philly october 1997 by Cheryl Clarke275 On Being a Jazz Musician by Jcherry Muhanji286 Fortune by R. Erica Doyle294 from Phallos by Samuel R. Delany320 He Remembers by malik m.l. williams322 The Angelic by Peter Conti326 i get it by L. Phillip Richardson328 Notes Toward a Poem About Love by Reginald Harris330 He remembers, I remember by Alan E. Miller331 Yours Were the Last Lips I Kissed by Carl Cook334 Blue by Forrest Hamer335 Once by John Frazier336 Evanescence by John Frazier337 ReDefined by Geoffrey Freeman338 Devious Mirrors by Reginald Harris339 Evidence by D. Rubin Green341 Lantern by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor342 So, this is where we are by Samiya Bashir344 Jesus Gon’ Hear My Song, Sho’ Nuff by Samiya Bashir345 bloomfist by Karma Mayet Johnson

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346 Why lisa don’t mind washing the floor by Letta Neely348 Drive by Duriel E. Harris350 But There Are Miles by Duriel E. Harris352 That August You Knew My Mother

by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor353 Psychic Imprints by B.Michael Hunter356 raindrop by Renita Martin357 Starvation Diet by Mistinguette359 The summer I did not go crazy by Mistinguette360 working my way back by Cheryl Clarke361 Rites by Karma Mayet Johnson362 pieces of the dream by Gina Rhodes363 back roads by Gina Rhodes366 In the Winston Lips of September, How We Met

by Karma Mayet Johnson367 pearls by francine j. harris372 where the boys are by Marvin K. White373 How Can You Live Without Hugs? by Duncan E. Teague375 Shopping List by Ernest Hardy376 demon eyes by Tim’m T. West378 Marguerite and Camay by Bil Wright380 A Name I Call Myself: A Conversation

by D. Rubin Green390 The Color of Free: Jamaica 1996 by Staceyann Chin396 What We Inherit by Robert Vazquez-Pacheco402 (Re-) Recalling Essex Hemphill: Words to Our Now

by Thomas Glave413 sassy b. gonn, or Searching for Black Lesbian Elders

by Lisa C. Moore432 Parking Lot Attendant/North Beach by Jerry Thompson433 Gift by Forrest Hamer434 Bel Canto (excerpt) by Daniel Alexander Jones482 Waiting for Giovanni (excerpt) by Jewelle Gomez490 Mighty Real: A Tribute to Sylvester (excerpt)

by Djola Branner511 Guess Who Came to Dinner (a monologue)

by Craig Hickman522 The Phone Rings by Samiya Bashir

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525 Question and Answer by Alan E. Miller526 dyke/warrior-prayers (an excerpt) by sharon bridgforth537 The D-train by Pamela Sneed544 homocomin’ by Tim’m T. West547 Cornbread Girl by Imani Henry551 Peculiar Wars by Renita Martin553 Osiris by Reginald Harris

555 Contributors’ Notes

576 Permissions

583 About the Editors

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prefaceVoices Rising marks the twentieth anniversary of Other

Countries, a powerful, far-reaching and deliberate legacy ofcommunity expression that began when Daniel Garrett invokedJames Baldwin’s line “Our history is each other” to convene blackgay men to a writing workshop on June 14, 1986—the same NewYork City summer that gave birth to Gay Men of AfricanDescent and Adodi. One of Other Countries’ early commitmentswas to publishing, producing our first volume Other Countries:Black Gay Voices in 1988, which won a Coordinating Council onLiterary Magazines award, and five years later Sojourner: Black GayVoices in the Age of AIDS, which won the Lambda Literary Awardfor small presses.

A collection of sixty-five black gay, lesbian, bisexual andtransgender voices, Voices Rising breaks brand new ground forOther Countries in two exciting ways. This unique anthology isthe first co-gender project undertaken by the group, which beganas and remains an organization of black gay men. Despiterepeated discussion of the idea, and one effort at doing so, blackwomen were never truly included in the Other Countries writingworkshop, which over fifteen years functioned as an important“safe space” where black gay and gender-nonconforming mengathered for conversation and kinship, and many learned to write.Voices Rising took shape on the borders of that weekly workshop,from a vision that the anthology would include and serve as abridge among members of the black gay, lesbian, bisexual andtransgender communities. The wealth of talent collected here,and the creation and sharing of art itself, are remarkablefoundations upon which to build and strengthen community. In adeparture from Other Countries’ two previous publications,which included visual art, the pages of Voices Rising exclusivelycelebrate the written word and the personal, political and culturalcomplexity that writing so well represents. We hope thatindividuals from all corners of our black GLBT community, and

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the world, will be enriched, challenged and expanded by thebreadth and intelligence of the work they find here.

Additionally, our partnership with RedBone Press inpublishing this volume represents an important political andpractical gesture we wish to underscore. Other Countries chosethis strategy over selling the manuscript to a corporate press orcontinuing our past practice of independently publishing. Ourrelationship with RedBone Press reflects our recognition of LisaC. Moore’s success in building a production and distributioninfrastructure for work like ours, the importance of supportingand strengthening entities that not only produce such work buthave the capacity and commitment to keep that work in print andin wide distribution, and the flexibility RedBone Press promisedin honoring Other Countries’ history and autonomy.

Collaborative cultural products do not arrive in the worldbloodlessly, however. We want this preface to reveal some of thecomplexity of the fifteen-year gestation of this book and, withthe genuine grace one employs at a birth, to acknowledge therange of actors and to celebrate the distinct value choices thatwere part of that messy process.

G(lenroy) Winston James jealously parented the book overten years of both progress and stagnation, and his editorial craftmore than anyone else’s is reflected here. We are eager torecognize, without shade or disrespect, both the yearlong co-editorial collaboration of Reginald T. Jackson and a sad andlengthy dispute that left the project’s editorial future again inGlenroy’s hands alone. We also acknowledge earlier co-editorialplayers Christopher Adams, Anthony Brown, Geoffrey Freemanand the late Nene Ofuatey-Kodjoe and Adrian Reynolds who, forvarious reasons and at various points, entered, exited and re-engaged with the project. We salute the book’s “midhusbands,” asmall group of Other Countries “godmothers” who, along withGlenroy, shepherded its final delivery into the world (afundamentally practical exercise that proved elusive for far toolong), and who took responsibility for the business judgment todepart from Other Countries’ tradition to date of self-publishing.Mirroring the administrative roles they played in Other Countries’

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first effort at publishing, Terence Taylor and Cary Alan Johnsontook special leadership in the publication process; ColinRobinson, with the help of his organization the New York StateBlack Gay Network, provided the sometimes questionable 2004-5 planning framework from which the group’s leadershipemerged; Kevin McGruder’s steadfastness and Doug Jones’insights completed this group, along with Len Richardson’s earlyinvolvement.

The book also embodies some humbling aspects ofcommunity economics and organization. Two black gay writersused their personal philanthropy to sustain the work andorganization they helped parent, even beyond their deaths.Assotto Saint, a publisher himself (Galiens Press), and BertMichael Hunter, who edited Sojourner, both bequeathed funds toOther Countries that enabled this project. (Special thanks go toBert’s executor John Manzon-Santos who took additional interestin the success of the project.)

Voices Rising’s publication also finalizes a process throughwhich Other Countries has reclaimed our identity andfunctioning, reversing a 1999 decision to cease administrativeautonomy and fold our program activities under the umbrella ofGay Men of African Descent. We acknowledge Tokes Osubu’srespect for that choice and—what was not an easy decision for asmall nonprofit—his agreement to return Other Countries fundsto our control. Though the process was, by its nature, not perfect,Tokes and Susan Li honored their promises to us.

Through other fiscal sponsors—including the New YorkFoundation for the Arts—the Jerome and Stonewall Foundationsand NYFA itself made past awards to Other Countries forgeneral support and this publishing project. Those of us involvedwith Voices Rising have done our best to responsibly steward suchfunds by applying them to this publication. The PublishingTriangle also contributed knowledge and technical support toOther Countries and this project as it developed. And RienMurray lovingly directed the Black Gay Network planning work.

In these pages are the collected works of literary artists, bothknown and until now unknown, living and deceased, who

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recognized the importance of their stories, and the beauty andeffectiveness of the written word. Talent, craft and poignancywere the main criteria for inclusion in Voices Rising. So it is with asense of both regret and joy that we admit that there are manyother writers and works that could have been included in thisvolume, and that we have merely sampled from the ever-increasing pool of talented U.S.-based writers. We thank all thosewho trusted us with their work, continued to do so over the yearsthat the manuscript remained unpublished, and cooperated withus in the final permissions process. We especially acknowledgethe heirs and executors of contributors who died while thepublication was in process.

Other Countries is a legacy to which many can now layvarious and particular claims, as creators, kin, students, witnesses,supporters or heirs, and in which we invite you to seize your ownownership. Created at a powerful historical moment at whichfeminism, GLBT people of color organizing and HIVintertwined to unhinge closets and untie tongues, and rooted in are-excavation of the Harlem Renaissance’s queerness and thelessons of black feminist expression, Other Countries wascatalyzed from the immediate lineage of the Blackheart Collectiveand Joseph Beam’s anthology In the Life. For twenty years we havemade lasting contributions to public consciousness about desire,community and identity. We have nurtured committed writers andcreated talented writers out of many who came mainly forconnection. We have preserved their work in print; and havetaken these words, through both publication and performance,into diverse community and artistic spaces, including gay bars,community centers, elite museums and universities, and publicschools. And we have engaged in the often historicallyunrecognized struggles with organizational infrastructure,process and personality that community artistic processesundergo.

Other Countries’ mission to nurture, disseminate andpreserve black gay expression is nourished by the soil tilled bysuch writers as James Baldwin, Joseph Beam, Steven Corbin,Melvin Dixon, Angelina Weld Grimké, Lorraine Hansberry, Craig

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Harris, Essex Hemphill, Terri Jewell, June Jordan, Audre Lorde,Alice Dunbar Nelson, Richard Bruce Nugent, Pat Parker, MarlonRiggs, Assotto Saint, Adrian Stanford and Donald Woods, and itis their seeds of creativity and courage that have enabled thevoices of today’s crop of writers to rise. A milestone marking ourtwo decades of building on that heritage, Voices Rising: Celebrating20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writingcontinues Other Countries’ service to black gay writers and thecommunities to which we belong and in which we work. Itcelebrates how deeper, fuller, and continually more complex ourcommunity’s voices grow as they continue, relentlessly, to rise.

—Other Countries, December 2006

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iinnttrroodduuccttiioonnby Dorothy Randall Gray

This is a visitation. A gathering of spirits ancient and new. Anearthquake of excellence unparalleled in the history ofpublication.

It is an answer to a call heard amidst the whispered prayersand loud silences, the righteous clamor of protest and passion,joy, and sorrow and sweet dreams.

It is a resounding reply to Lucy, unearthed from the bowelsof Africa and named first woman. Lucy, calling for her sons anddaughters to come home, not as separate but equal vessels sailingthe middle passage of a literary aesthetic, but as family, brothersand sisters, survivors of the fittest.

This is Voices Rising, a homecoming named first reminder ofthe kindred spirit we share as black lesbian, gay, bisexual andtransgendered children of Lucy. Voices Rising, a dazzlingcompilation of the bones beneath the blood, the sinew and fiberof our existence in all of its painful brilliance.

This book comes home celebrating ancestral landscapes ofthe past, the power of the present, and the poignant promise ofthe future. It comes adorned with the armor of our love, fillingits pages with silk and studs and leather and lace, boot andBirkenstock realities. The arcane archeology of our lives wrappedin poetry and prose.

Voices Rising comes with spirits dancing between its sheets,sitting on shoulders, daring us to carry on, to remember, to writeas if we could not breathe without our words. These visceralvoices from bygone days lie in wait behind each page. I heardthem sing to me of how our lives had crossed, and how they hadlived their days.

Essex Hemphill daring to be black and gay and fiercelyeloquent in a deep south reading with Sonia Sanchez, Sapphire,and Imamu Baraka. Terri Jewell, weighing her last thoughtsbefore taking her last breath, a colored girl who did more than

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consider suicide.Assotto Saint in his Haitian divaness, arranging his own

funeral, dictating whom he did and did not want to have readingpoetry at his service. Danitra Vance, a neighborhood girl living onSterling Place while making a living on Saturday Night Live. DellonWilson, elegant with pride, receiving transfusions of blood andmusic while serving poetry and dance, culture and commitment.

I also heard the pioneering activism of Ruth Waters, theferocious colors of Michael Kendall, and the fighting spirit ofMaua Yvonne Flowers losing her fingers before losing her life. Iheard the power of Donald Woods, the effervescence of RoyGonsalves, and the southerness of Trey Johnson. I heard namesI don’t hear often enough. I stood witness to their passing, totheir memorials in Brooklyn and Boston, in the Village and in thevestal regions of the cities that fed them.

And it is all in this book, between these stirring lines and inthe splendid souls who had the courage to create them. Afulfillment of our diasporic destiny. A legacy carried forth fromour foremothers and forefathers, from the voices of all whocould not finish their song.

This is Voices Rising, monumental and magnificent. A home foryour spirit to dwell in. Hold this history in your hands, listen to itsincantations, and let them live inside your heart. Lucy is well pleased.

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