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Books you SHOULD Be Taught
- By PorchGal  Essex Hemphill's CEREMONIES, on the other hand, is anything but academic. Research for this collection of poems and essays happened on the streets of DC, in the sheets and against the walls and in the men's room and on the S2 bus. Hemphill's writing reminds us that our personal life is what life is, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
I'm an oversexed
well-hung
Black Queen
influenced
by phrases like
"the repetition
of beauty."
And you want me to sing
"We Shall Overcome"?
Do you daddy daddy
do you want me to coo
for your approval?
Do you want me
to squeeze my lips together
and suck you in?
Will I be a "brother" then?
Essex Hemphill revels in the personal, rebels in the personal, dives into the personal wreck and shimmies in the reflective pool. He dives into anger, breathes suffering, surfaces into joy and dives again. I have been in the bathroom weeping
as silently as I could
I don't want to alarm
the other young men.
It wasn't always this way.
I used to grin.
I used to dance.
The streets weren't always
slick with blood,
sick with drugs.
My life seems to be
marked down
for quick removal
from the shelf.
When I fuck
the salt tastes sweet.
(from "Heavy Breathing")
ABOUT PORCHGAL
PorchGal lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina where she does a variety of things for love and for money. You can find her on the porch, cross-legged on an overstuffed white trash couch with a pile of books at her feet, an ashtray spilling cigarettes and a pot of coffee nearby. Stop by anytime. Contact: PorchGal@technodyke.com |
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