Essex hemphill books
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Essex Hemphill (2009)
Essex Hemphill arrived in Washington as a child.
Photo © Jim W Marks
"Take care of your blessings!”
“I want to start
an organization
to save my life.
If Whales, snails,
dogs, cats,
Chrysler, and Nixon
can be saved,
the lives of Black men
are priceless
and can be saved.
We should be able
to save each other.”
-- Essex Hemphill, “For My Own Protection”, Ceremonies, 1992.
“I always tell people I can be gay in only a few cities in this country, but I’m Black everywhere I go.”
--from Untied Inspiration, by Chuck Tarver, Network, December 1990
“... new worlds do not come delivered on silver platters. New worlds, new ways of living do require getting the hands dirty. New worlds require more than lip-service and appearances.”
--from a letter to African-American lesbian poet Audre Lorde
"[Tongues Untied] is about desire and diversity, which we have not fully addressed. That is why we are having so much trouble coming into our communities and talking about AIDS. We do not want to recognize that we are not a sexual monolith."
Born in Chi
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Essex Hemphill
American writer and activist (1957–1995)
Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957 – November 4, 1995) was an openly gayAmericanpoet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-American gay community.[1]
Biography
Early life
Essex Hemphill was born April 16, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois,[2] to Warren and Mantalene Hemphill, and was the second eldest of five children. Early in his life, he moved to Washington D.C. where he attended Ballou High School.[3] He began writing poetry at the age of fourteen, writing about his own thoughts, family life, and budding sexuality. After graduation, he enrolled at the University of Maryland in 1975 to study journalism.[3] Though he left college after his freshman year, he continued to interact with the D.C. art scene: performing spoken word, working on journals, and beginning to publish his first poetry chapbooks.[3] He would go on to achieve his degree in E
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I met Essex Hemphill at City University of New York reading in 1993. I scoured all of the poetry books at St. Mark’s Bookshop and found his collection of poetry and essays, Ceremonies. This was at the height of multicultural publishing and the beginning of the spoken word poetry slam movement. I was looking for every possible role model as a writer and when I saw Essex deliver his poetry with unabashed sexuality and sardonic wit, I was witnessing the wedding of social justice, verse & performance. Essex Hemphill advocated gay marriage rights in "American Wedding":
In America,
I place my ring
on your cock
where it belongs.
No horsemen
bearing terror,
no soldier of doom
will swoop in
and sweep us apart.
He wrote about the AIDS epidemic, religious homophobia, Mappelthorpe's hyper-sexualized images of black men and the sordid red light district of 14th Street, NW. I stood before Essex trying to absorb as much of his fearless strength and conviction to be a proud gay male of color. He smiled at me and signed my copy of Ceremonies: "To Re
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