tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89874880744183047262024-03-12T23:05:46.792-07:00The Writer's JourneyThis site is about things I find interesting or feel you should know about--Fashion, men, news, politics, gay awareness issues and above all it's definitely GAY!
I am a Kent State University English Major,striving to be a writer, and I am a 40-something Gay man so this should be a really fun visit... grab your favorite cocktail and enjoy reading.Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.comBlogger1755125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-81640563410648340932015-07-15T17:33:00.001-07:002015-08-18T04:16:02.954-07:00Tomorrow, Tomorrow I love ya<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>When I'm</i><i> stuck with a day that's grey and lonely</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I just stick up my chin and grin say, oh</i></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
We all the lyrics to that song. I don't even have to say the name of the song and we all know it. I haven't been able to shake the lyrics out of my head today. The whole drive up to Connecticut to start my LAST semester at grad school. How is that even possible? That your average guy goes from having a poor high school education to a Kent State University Honors Graduate, and in early January of 2016 Professor Charles Dale. I can't begin to explain the journey except to say despite living long term with AIDS (which I'll talk about in a bit) I've worked my rear end off. Tests in hospital, exams in fast track rehabilitation at a Nursing Home and more than once going to class with a walker, a cane or even a wheelchair. I did exactly what was expected of me, and sometimes more –––– ask Dr. Jayne Moneysmith about The Gage Report, or Dr. Robert Miltner about my thesis.<br />
<br />
I've spent nearly two years at Fairfield University writing about what it has been like living with AIDS, as of tomorrow it has been........25 YEARS!<br />
<br />
Twenty-five years.<br />
<br />
How did that happen? Where did the time go? I've written the following from my memoir:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Fulton
Orsler has said, “Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves ––– regret
for the past and fear of the future.”
There is so much for me to regret, but where do I, and what do
I begin with? Like many people I’ve done
things I’m not proud of: becoming an alcoholic and drug user, my becoming
entrenched in a sea of anonymous, unsafe sex with men, and finally reducing my
self worth to nothing. It wasn’t all
that hard to do –– I’m not making
excuses for the decisions I made, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>but they all played a part subconsciously in
my wanting to die. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>My subconscious
decision to die, it’s a dangerous and powerful statement....</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> I felt my life
had sunk so low at one point.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I couldn’t and wouldn’t
pull the trigger on a gun.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">That’s not
who I am.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">Overdosing on pills three
times, only to get my stomach pumped.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">What was left?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">A slow, not so
visible suicide of alcoholic binges mixed with uppers and downers.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">No one would really notice what I was doing.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">Sooner or later what I was doing would indeed
kill me, mix into the equation unsafe sex with a sea of men, and HIV/AIDS would
surely kill me if the pills and booze couldn’t.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">Nearly all of the “bath house slut boys”, as they were known then, got
HIV/AIDS –– even when it was just known as "the gay cancer", and most of them were dead within two years.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">If
someone wanted that badly to die this was “the safest way to do it”.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Turns out that I have trouble dying –––– Problem is I wasn't meant to die when I wanted too.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i> I was never meant to survive ––––– yet from my friends in Florida, in the late 1980's, I'm the only survivor. There are no other voices but mine. I'm left to </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><i>tell all of their stories. Wonderfully fun times, with people who float in and out of my memory or in dreams.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i>Somehow, someway I have survived. A survivor.
Me. A survivor. I’ve never seen myself that way for some reason. I’ve just lived the one day I’m in. Living one day at a time. Days somehow become weeks, then months, then years and now, well now it's decades. In the earliest days of my diagnosis, I felt HIV/AIDS gave me no promise of tomorrow. </i></span><!--EndFragment--><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>I think now of Michael on the eve of his
death, his skin, and bone appearance, his slight breathing; the anesthetized
glaze of his eyes as he held on longer than any of us thought possible. My brain morphs to what I need to remember
versus what I want to remember; the friend I cherished and the man who became
my first lover. Those earliest years
after his death, pallid nightmares floated through me ––– the blue of his eyes
bulging from his skeletal face, his chapped, drying lips rasping for air. I am
reminded now of my early gay brothers in arms whom I’ve seen survive lover’s or
best friends. Death offers no real reprieve, no absolution, just the brutal
reality of inescapable demise. All of us,
gay or straight, who have lost someone to AIDS, bear the same kind of battle
fatigue. And those of us, who have been in the trenches and have suffered
immeasurable loss, carry the brunt of that fatigue. So many of us who have suffered this kind of
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to ease the pain of that oppressive loss.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most of us now, I think, have become apathetic and complacent. There's no more anger. There's no more fear. There is no real sense of community. We've become homogenized. We think Prep is the answer when some guys only use it as a morning after pill. That doesn't work. That's not how that treatment is designed. I have a friend who has never been compliant with his HIV drugs, is only currently only on ONE drug and then wonders why he's ill. He's never applied for SSI/SSD, Medicaid, Medicare and then wonders why he doesn't have anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I met a young man last December living with AIDS on the streets of NYC. His best friend, also living with AIDS, froze to death on those same streets! Where is the "new" Larry Kramer to be the warrior for long term survivors or even the newly diagnosed? Why hasn't the African American church reached out to those of us who are long term survivors to help provide hope and encouragement to the newly diagnosed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>In those earliest years of AIDS, the intimate memorial services at somebody’s home
had become a source for cruising. Rooms
were filled with gay men in dark suits, with cocktail in hand, a cigarette in
the other hand between perfectly manicured fingers, and at their fingertips
horderves. Small prattle about how
someone’s suit was last seasons fashion, and dear lord who would wear those
shoes with, well, with anything. It seems
like it all came down to mindless dribble and one huge bitching fest or
outright cruising and leaving with your next trick. How had death been reduced to something that
felt so horribly wrong? Or was it, the
only way some could deal with so much death, all of the dying, and finally all
of the grief?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">So many died, and I cannot
or will not blame those who did what they did, or didn’t do what should have
been done. I have no hard feelings about
how some </span><!--EndFragment--></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">of
us <i>chose to live with our grief.</i></span><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">Grief
became personal. It became a part of me.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">At this stage in my life, as I near fifty, I’m trying to not let all of
that past grief consume me.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I’m trying
to not let the past overpower or devour me.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">It has been a process that doesn’t come easily and I am doing everything
I can to live in the moment.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">Those
events, and that time have become something I have survived.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">It has made me stronger.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">It made me into the man I am today.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">You know something I would do it the exact
same way all over again.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I don’t know
who I would be without my past.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I don’t
know who or what that man would be like.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I do know who I am.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I know where
I have been.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I know what I have survived
and I know what I cherish.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I cherish
living.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 200%;">I applaud my fellow long term survivors, people like: Greg Louganis, Jack Mackenroth, Sharon Thomas, Jon Brittan, and others but why isn't there some form of study going on involving long term survivors? John Hopkins is doing studies on the effects of growing old on AIDS and the medication, and then the effects of AIDS and it's medication on growing old. But </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">nothing on the effects of AIDS and long term survival. If....... these new class of drugs make life with HIV/AIDS a chronic illness that is manageable, which is what the CDC is saying, then we are going to have a HUGE influx of long term survival patients that we will nothing about, because we aren't doing anything now!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">In my 25 years with this disease I can say I have seen the depths of despair and hopelessness as well as over powering grief. However, I also have the education I have always wanted, and am debating going further and get a doctorate. I have a comfortable life, in a nice neighborhood, and friends and family who adore me..... and the feeling is mutual. All in all I have been blessed. I can't imagine my life without this disease in it. AIDS has made me who I am.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">But.......the latest struggle is somehow adapting to a new disease that there is no treatment for, no possible cure and in its time will either:</span></span></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>I’ve
had X-rays, CAT Scans, MRI’s, full body scans, spinal taps, heart tests, and
bone density tests. I’ve been told its
Fibromyalgia, lingering after affects of having had shingles almost twenty
years ago, Neuropathy, and a long term degenerative disorder because of having
AIDS for so long. I’ve been hospitalized
for it, put into rehab for it, and treated with at least ten different
medications and nothing works.
Nothing. The pain at times can be
so bad it affects my sense of balance, which then affects my ability to walk.
Yet, nothing is ever found. This
physical pain I suffer is more than branding.
I’ve been torn completely apart and the pain is the lingering aftermath
of losing someone I cherish more than anything or anyone else. Is it no wonder there is no diagnosis? No wonder the wizard can’t find anything in
his bag for me? No matter how many times
I click my heels, I can’t go home!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Some options huh. AIDS-Related Myelopathy. Long term Progressive Degenerative Disease. "We're so sorry Mr. Dale." Almost 13 years to hear that diagnosis. Walking at the grocery store or the mall –––– not an option, I'm in a wheelchair. More than twenty feet, for the most part, is with a walker. My nerves are being destroyed. I struggle with how do I work with this? How do I get a teaching or writing job when there are times I sleep the whole day away? I know I'm probably putting the cart before the horse, but I see this as changing everything I know. I can't imagine any employer wanting to "take me on" credentials or not. A good New England Jesuit Catholic Grad School Program or not.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Deep down I think there is hope. I have to hope, right?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>Just thinkin' about tomorrow</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>til there's none......</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>the sun will come out tomorrow</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>So you gotta on</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i>til tomorrow, come what may</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Here's to 25 more!</span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-5358889790005792932015-03-25T22:25:00.001-07:002015-03-25T22:25:59.530-07:00Diagnosis: HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy<br />
<h1 id="pageTitle">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I've waited two days to say anything after my Cleveland Clinic Visit for the chest and back pain, as well as my current and re-accuring problems with balance and walking. I've gone 12 years without a </i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>diagnosis. 12 long years of misdiagnosis, pain killers and medication that didn't work and the brush off when nothing could be found. It's been emotionally exhaustive. I've currently been with a home visiting nurse, a home physical therapist and a social worker. I've also was fortunate enough to get an adjustable hospital bed, which I love by the way. But it has been unbearable since the middle of January. </i></span></span></h1>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>It's felt very lonely. It's been emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining. I feel lost. </i></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Now though I have a diagnosis. One I'm not overly thrilled with, but at least a diagnosis. One that technically can not be treated except for what I am doing now by being on morphine and a course of HIV anti-retrovirals. I saw a psychologist today who wants me to up the </i></span></span><i>strength of my Zoloft and he is going to help me find a grief group.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>I'm at a point right now in my life where I'm going to <u>beg for people to talk to me about this</u>. Help me through this. Help me cope, and as the psychologist said today "to find my sense of freedom." There are things I need to figure out. Beyond teaching what can I do with my MFA. I'm not opposed to teaching, I would just like to know my options. Should I continue on and earn my Doctorate in Modern African American Literature or do I immediately enroll in the government school program to teach and in 5 years would forgive my student loans. I have personal issues I have to work through as well and I don't have the answer to those either. BUT:</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>On a positive note I did graduate from Kent with Full Honors with a document that is now my first self-published book, I have had two articles about my writing recently, I have had rave reviews of my book, I'm enrolled in one of the best grad schools in the country and will have my MFA in Creative writing the beginning of January 2016. I will have a second completed manuscript when I leave Fairfield that could become my third book. I'm finishing my second now. I won second place in poetry contest my first semester at Fairfield. On July 16th of this year I celebrate 25 yrs. with AIDS. So I know I have a lot going for me. Yet, somehow, I have to begin to embrace and acknowledge what I have done and while living with a chronic illness.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>I ask for your support, your love, your friendship and your prayers. I'm so very grateful and blessed to have the people I do in my life.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>Charlie</i></div>
<h1 id="pageTitle">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h1>
<h1 id="pageTitle">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy</span></span></h1>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="a1" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Overview</span></h2>
<i>Vacuolar myelopathy is the most common chronic myelopathy associated with HIV infection</i>. HIV-associated vacuolar myelopathy occurs during the late stages of HIV infection, when CD4<sup>+</sup> lymphocyte counts are very low, often in conjunction with AIDS dementia complex, peripheral neuropathies, and opportunistic infections or malignancies of the central or peripheral nervous system (eg, cytomegalovirus, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, lymphoma).<br />
For patient education information, see the Immune System Center, Dementia Center, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Center, as well as Dementia Due to HIV Infection and HIV/AIDS.</div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b3" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Pathophysiology</span></h2>
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the development of this common complication of HIV-1 infection. One hypothesis is infiltration by HIV-infected mononuclear cells that secrete neurotoxic factors, including cytokines, possibly in conjunction with neurotoxic astrocyte factors. A significant amount of scientific support exists for this paradigm. Transgenic mice that express HIV gene products in oligodendrocytes develop clinical and histologic features that resemble the human disease.<br />
Although direct HIV infection of astrocytes and neurons is reported in the brain and dorsal root ganglia, it is not a major feature in vacuolar myelopathy.<br />
The impaired ability to utilize vitamin B-12 as a source of methionine in transmethylation metabolism for myelin maintenance in the spinal cord may be a contributing factor.</div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b4" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Epidemiology and Prognosis</span></h2>
Before the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), vacuolar myelopathy was seen in 5-20% of adult HIV patients in clinical studies and in 25-55% of adult HIV patients in histologic studies. Since the introduction of HAART, it is estimated that fewer than 10% of AIDS patients develop HIV myelopathy.<br />
<br />
The prognosis in HIV patients with vacuolar myelopathy is poor.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Clinical Presentation:</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b5" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
Vacuolar myelopathy typically presents as a slow progression of painless leg weakness, stiffness, sensory loss, imbalance, and sphincter dysfunction. Relapsing-remitting courses have also been described.<sup>[1]</sup><br />
<br />
Arm function is usually normal except for advanced vacuolar myelopathy.<br />
Vacuolar myelopathy is often associated with AIDS dementia complex and peripheral neuropathy. In such cases, patients have cognitive decline and distal limb pain and numbness.<br />
<h4>
Physical examination:</h4>
The following may be noted on physical examination:<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Slowly progressive spastic paraparesis</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Hyperreflexia and extensor plantar responses</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Sensory ataxia</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Incontinence</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Rarely, asymmetric features and involvement of upper extremities</div>
</li>
</ul>
A discrete sensory level is usually absent; if present, this strongly suggests other causes of myelopathy.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b6" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Diagnostic Considerations</span></h2>
The differential diagnosis includes neurosyphilis. Other problems to be considered in the differential diagnosis of HIV-related vacuolar myelopathy include the following:<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Herpes simplex virus infection</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Cytomegalovirus infection</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Cervical disk syndromes</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
HIV-1 associated conditions (eg, Kaposi sarcoma, lymphoma, toxoplasmosis) in the spinal canal</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
<em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> infection</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Compressive myelopathy (eg, tumor, abscess, herniated disc, arteriovenous malformation)</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1)–associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (can co-exist with HIV infection)</div>
</li>
<li><div class="topbullet">
Spinal epidural abscess in HIV-infected parenteral drug users</div>
<div class="topbullet">
<br /></div>
<div class="topbullet">
Diagnostic Tests</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b7" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
Electrophysiologic tests can confirm a clinical diagnosis of vacuolar myelopathy. Somatosensory evoked potential (SSEP) may be a valuable tool in the diagnosis of AIDS-associated myelopathy, particularly when myelopathy and peripheral neuropathy coexist.<sup>[2]</sup><br />
<br />
Serum studies can determine vitamin B-12 and folic acid levels. In patients with borderline low B-12 levels, elevated homocysteine and methylmalonic acid levels are better indicators of a deficiency. B-12 levels are usually normal in vacuolar myelopathy.<br />
<br />
CT scan results are often noncontributory but may reveal unsuspected coexisting conditions such as extramedullary or intramedullary infections, neoplasms, degenerative disk disease, or degenerative joint disease of the spine.<br />
<br />
Magnetic Resonance Imaging:<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="aw2aab6b8" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
MRI scans are often noncontributory but may reveal unsuspected coexisting conditions such as extramedullary or intramedullary infections, neoplasms, degenerative disk disease, or degenerative joint disease of the spine.<br />
<br />
Spinal cord atrophy is the most common abnormal finding involving the thoracic cord with or without cervical cord involvement. T2-weighted MRI often shows symmetric nonenhancing high-signal areas, which are present on multiple contiguous slices and are usually symmetrical; these may result from extensive vacuolation.<sup>[3, 4, 5]</sup><br />
<sup><br /></sup>
<a class="viewcell" href="http://misc.medscape.com/pi/android/medscapeapp/html/A1167064-business.html"></a></div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="a11" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
Care for patients with HIV-associated vacuolar myelopathy is primarily supportive. Although no specific treatment is currently approved for this syndrome, viral control tailored to the individual patient's medical and viral history is important, as case reports showing clinical and radiologic improvement with highly active retroviral therapy (HAART) have been described.<sup>[9, 10, 11, 2]</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
Author</div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="authorinfo01" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<div class="authorname">
Niranjan N Singh, MD, DM, Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine</div>
<div class="authordisclosure">
Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.</div>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Coauthor(s)</span></h3>
<div class="authorname">
Florian P Thomas, MD, MA, PhD, Drmed:</div>
<div class="authorname">
<br /></div>
<div class="authorname">
Director, Regional MS Center of Excellence, St Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center; Director, National MS Society Multiple Sclerosis Center; Director, Neuropathy Association Center of Excellence, Professor, Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, Associate Professor, Institute for Molecular Virology, St Louis University School of Medicine</div>
<div class="authordisclosure">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="panel fullpage" id="References" title="HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy" xmlns="">
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">References</span></h2>
<ol class="ref">
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/16274745?src=mckb" target="_new">Anneken K, Fischera M, Evers S. Recurrent vacuolar myelopathy in HIV infection. <em>J Infect</em>. Jun 2006;52(6):e181-3. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/10751261?src=mckb" target="_new">Tagliati M, Di Rocco A, Danisi F, Simpson DM. The role of somatosensory evoked potentials in the diagnosis of AIDS-associated myelopathy. <em>Neurology</em>. Apr 11 2000;54(7):1477-82. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/10512221?src=mckb" target="_new">Chong J, Di Rocco A, Tagliati M, et al. MR findings in AIDS-associated myelopathy. <em>AJNR Am J Neuroradiol</em>. Sep 1999;20(8):1412-6. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/7761000?src=mckb" target="_new">Santosh CG, Bell JE, Best JJ. Spinal tract pathology in AIDS: postmortem MRI correlation with neuropathology. <em>Neuroradiology</em>. Feb 1995;37(2):134-8. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/9457712?src=mckb" target="_new">Sartoretti-Schefer S, Blattler T, Wichmann W. Spinal MRI in vacuolar myelopathy, and correlation with histopathological findings. <em>Neuroradiology</em>. Dec 1997;39(12):865-9. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/2717618?src=mckb" target="_new">Eilbott DJ, Peress N, Burger H, et al. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in spinal cords of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients with myelopathy: expression and replication in macrophages.<em>Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A</em>. May 1989;86(9):3337-41. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/8492917?src=mckb" target="_new">Tyor WR, Glass JD, Baumrind N, et al. Cytokine expression of macrophages in HIV-1-associated vacuolar myelopathy. <em>Neurology</em>. May 1993;43(5):1002-9. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/3974673?src=mckb" target="_new">Petito CK, Navia BA, Cho ES, et al. Vacuolar myelopathy pathologically resembling subacute combined degeneration in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. <em>N Engl J Med</em>. Apr 4 1985;312(14):874-9. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/18082439?src=mckb" target="_new">Bizaare M, Dawood H, Moodley A. Vacuolar myelopathy: a case report of functional, clinical, and radiological improvement after highly active antiretroviral therapy. <em>Int J Infect Dis</em>. Jul 2008;12(4):442-4.<span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><span class="nolink">DiRocco A. HIV-associated myelopathy. Current Treatment Options in Infectious Diseases. Vol 5. 2003:457-465.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/15377804?src=mckb" target="_new">Fernandez-Fernandez FJ, de la Fuente-Aguado J, Ocampo-Hermida A. Remission of HIV-associated myelopathy after highly active antiretroviraltherapy. <em>J Postgrad Med</em>. 2004;50(3):195-6. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/9674817?src=mckb" target="_new">Di Rocco A, Tagliati M, Danisi F, et al. A pilot study of L-methionine for the treatment of AIDS-associated myelopathy. <em>Neurology</em>. Jul 1998;51(1):266-8. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/15477550?src=mckb" target="_new">Di Rocco A, Werner P, Bottiglieri T, et al. Treatment of AIDS-associated myelopathy with L-methionine: a placebo-controlled study. <em>Neurology</em>. Oct 12 2004;63(7):1270-5. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/10636172?src=mckb" target="_new">Staudinger R, Henry K. Remission of HIV myelopathy after highly active antiretroviral therapy. <em>Neurology</em>. Jan 11 2000;54(1):267-8. <span class="viewabs">[View Abstract]</span></a></li>
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Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-67433874754034290182014-07-17T19:38:00.001-07:002014-07-17T19:38:57.021-07:00It's been 24 years yesterday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, if you have been reading this blog any length of time, you know yesterday was a milestone event for me. I was in NYC last night, staying at the Chelsea Savoy in the Chelsea Neighborhood of West 21 and Fashion Avenue and I celebrated living twenty-four years with AIDS. (Me at the right with Swatch of Mood Fabric's and Project Runway Fame!)<br />
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First let me begin by saying that this trip to NYC was planned around the start of my second Residency at Fairfield Universities Creative Writing MFA Program, which I am very blessed to be in. My major is Creative Writing and I have spent the last seven months writing my memoirs. What has it been like, in my perspective, to be have lived twenty-four years in NE Ohio with AIDS. It's given me a lot of time to reflect, to write and to see things in a new way.<br />
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Until January of this year I had this feeling that I didn't know why I had lived as long as I had, when so many others have died --- most recently my friend Edye Gregory. January I finally was able to put the pieces together and know I had simply had survived to write. I write to give my voice to the diaspora of literature on what it means to live with AIDS and to live with it long-term.<br />
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Many of you know I have had my share or hurdles to face: three rounds of Chemotherapy for Kaposi Scarcoma, four rounds of pneumonia, two rounds of double pneumonia, a spell of meningitis, bouts of neuropathy, the death of two partners from AIDS as well as countless friends and most recently a stay in a nursing facility for physical rehab last August. It, simply, has been no cake walk; but I'm not complaining. I had had it easy.<br />
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Let me explain. I met a young man today, actually a young homeless man, living on the streets of NYC. He was around 23, covered in KS sores and a cardboard sign "Homeless. HIV+. Please Help." We spoke for a few minutes. Since he is homeless he is ineligible for Medicaid/Medicare. Which makes him ineligible for medication, except through the Free Clinic and except from receiving Radiation to help with the KS. It gets worse. Since there is no address he is ineligible for Food Stamps and relies on an overworked, inadequate Free Meals through different shelters. A friend of his, also HIV+, this last January froze to death on the streets. His friend was 21 at the time. I have not been able to get this young man out of my mind. I gave him some money and my left over lunch I couldn't eat. Unable to find a "solution" to his "issue", he says he fears he will freeze to death as well.<br />
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It has never been that bad for me. I deeply grateful. Yet, HIV/AIDS in this country is a chronic, manageable disease. Till this to this young man. Better yet, till it to our soon to be incoming President whomever he/she may be. What can we do? Right now, I really don't know. There has to be something. Maybe it was just telling his story. Maybe it was the few bills I gave him.<br />
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My life after all has been a cake walk. I am so very thankful, for so very much.<br />
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My mind was filled with memories to this trip. Last time I was in the Chelsea Savoy Ron was alive, and if I think right that was at least 18 years ago. I kept thinking of him today. Wondering if he would be proud of who I am become since 2002 when he died. What would he say to me. Better yet, what would I say to him? <br />
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I came to this trip nervous and anxious. I've greyed considerably since January when I left Enders Island. I'm twenty pounds heavier too. I was (or am) out of mind ––– when there is so much to be thankful for.<br />
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If you've read this far I wouldn't change much of the last twenty-four years. Here's looking for the next twenty-four<br />
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Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-46185510713756995822014-04-21T08:23:00.000-07:002015-08-13T06:17:53.892-07:00"In God's Silence": First Book UpdateFirst of all thank you to those of you who still come to read this blog. It is deeply appreciated. I know posting has been eradicate but life does every now and then comes up and things must be dealt with.<br />
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The last few months for me, physically speaking, have been very rough. The pain in my chest and back, for the last ten years, is again at its worst. The doctor I'm seeing for this thinks its Neuropathy. To tell you the truth I'm not sure if that is what it is or not. I just know I am in horrific pain. The last two weeks or so I've slept on the couch, which is the only lace I can get comfortable. I also think this pain, at times, effects my ability to think clearly and rationally which then affects my ability to write.<br />
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My new (and first) book is doing extremely well.<b> I've sold forty copies</b> in the three weeks it has been available on Amazon.com. I have managed to get my book in the Kent State University at Stark book store--- for sale, and also in their lending libraries and archives. There are perks to being alumni. I also have my book on the desk of the manager of the Fairlawn, Ohio Barnes & Noble for consideration.<br />
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My first reviews for my book (outside of a class room where this project started) has come out:<br />
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"I am halfway through the book and I must say it is very riveting. This book will go far. Thank you Charles Dale for such a memorable story." Mrs. Ginny Greenhill<br />
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<span class="a-size-base a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;">From author of "Beyond John Dunn" and "The Light of a Bright Sun" Thurman P. Banks Jr.</span></div>
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<span class="a-size-base a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;">A heart-wrenching trial of love, loss, and hope</span></div>
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I struggle to find the words that can adequately describe Charlie Dale's debut. A truly gifted wordsmith, Charlie mingles in the world of poetry, prophecy, and prose that often left me rereading for the simple pleasure of basking in the beauty of Mr. Dale's writing style. "In God's Silence", we walk a mile and more in young Christoph's shoes, a diffucult task for even the most fleeting of foot. We find ourselves lost in love, lost in a family that has turned their hearts on (against) us, and lost in ( a) box, imprisoned in Aushcwitz, (and) imprisoned in our mind. Charlie Dale doesn't just tell us about atrocities, he shows us with a gentle hand and open heart, he guides us through a world we have never seen. For this, for all of this, I am grateful. If the true mark of a great book is the life that lingers on, than you can mark my words that this is a great book, as "In God's Silence", I will forever hear the voices that remain.</div>
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I also have my first public presentation this Friday at Kent State University at Stark for the Honor's College Conference in Room 212 in the Fine Arts Building. I start at 9:00 a.m. I will:<br />
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<li> Be speaking about the background and research that went into this book</li>
<li> what prompted it. </li>
<li>I will be reading a passage from the book. </li>
<li>Showing a short movie of images I found.</li>
<li>And finally taking questions about the project and book.</li>
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Then on May 16th at 7:00 p.m. I have my first public "<i>Meet and Greet the Author"</i> at Keillor's a Teddy Bear Shoppe at 117 Canal Street, Canal Fulton, OH where I will be doing the same thing as I did at KSU with the addition of wine, cheese and finger-foods.</div>
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If you haven't gotten your signed book yet you need to email me at cdale9966@me.com to put in your request. The book is $15 plus a $4.00 shipping charge within the USA if it has to be shipped. Over seas prices vary depending on distention; or you can order a non-signed book through Amazon.com at </div>
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http://www.amazon.com/In-Gods-Silence-Charles-Dale/dp/1495438635/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398092796&sr=8-1&keywords=In+God%27s+Silence+Charles+Dale</div>
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<br />Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-75478065359778640802014-01-08T21:54:00.001-07:002014-01-08T21:54:05.024-07:00The incredible Eccentricities of 20 Great Writers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Truly great artists will do whatever it takes to find their muse.
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1. JOHN CHEEVER</h4>
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The short story guru was like everyone else: He woke up, put on a suit, and went to work. And unlike everyone else, he took an elevator down to his apartment building’s basement, stripped off all his clothes, and wrote in his underwear.</div>
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2. GERTRUDE STEIN</h4>
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Stein liked lounging in the passenger seat of her Model-T Ford, penning prose while her partner Alice Toklas drove around doing errands.</div>
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3. VIRGINIA WOOLF</h4>
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Woolf used a standing desk before it was cool. (She wanted to work on the same playing field as her sister, who was an artist.) Although she decided to take a seat later in her career, Woolf loved purple and wrote most of <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mrs. Dalloway</em> in purple ink.</div>
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4. SIR WALTER SCOTT</h4>
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Scott penned most of the poem <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marmion</em> in his head while riding a horse.</div>
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5. JAMES JOYCE</h4>
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The modernist master liked writing in bed while on his stomach. He also always wore a white coat for practical reasons. Joyce was nearly blind, and the bright coat reflected light and helped him see. As his eyesight worsened, he wrote on cardboard with colored crayons.</div>
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6. FRIEDRICH SCHILLER</h4>
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Schiller worked late at night, so to keep the sandman away, he’d dip his feet in ice-cold water. But it gets weirder: Schiller always wrote with a bunch of rotten apples stowed in his desk drawer. He said the smell motivated him.</div>
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7. ALEXANDER DUMAS</h4>
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Dumas insisted that all of his literary output be color-coded: Blue paper for fiction, pink paper for articles, and yellow paper for poetry.</div>
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8. DEMOSTHENES</h4>
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To keep on task, the Greek orator would shave half of his head because it forced him to stay inside and work. Plutarch writes, “Here he would continue, oftentimes without intermission, two or three months together, shaving one half of his head, that so for shame he might not go abroad, though he desired it ever so much.”</div>
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9. LORD BYRON</h4>
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Byron was basically an eccentric amateur zookeeper. At school, he kept a bear in his dorm room. (He leashed it up and took it for walks around campus—he even tried to get it a fellowship.) Later on, according to Percy Shelley, Byron kept eight dogs, three monkeys, five cats, some peacocks, eagles, crows, and falcons inside his house.</div>
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10. YUKIO MISHIMA</h4>
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Nominated for three Nobel prizes, Mishima actually founded an emperor-worshipping cult for teenage boys. In 1970, he stormed the Japanese Defense Headquarters with a sword and four of his boys. After failing to overthrow the government, he committed suicide.</div>
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11. OSCAR WILDE</h4>
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Wilde didn’t care what Victorian England thought. He’s rumored to have once walked down the street with a lobster on a leash.</div>
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12. JOHN MILTON</h4>
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Milton started his day at 4:00 a.m. He spent the first hour thinking in solitude. Then an aide would read him the Bible for half an hour, afterward dictating whatever Milton said. (Milton was blind, and those dictations would become <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Paradise Lost</em>). Whenever the aide was late, Milton griped, “I want to be milked. I want to be milked.”</div>
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13. HONORÉ DE BALZAC</h4>
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No one worked harder than Balzac. He’d wake up at 1:00 a.m., write for seven hours, take a nap at 8:00 a.m., wake up at 9:30 a.m., write again till 4:00 p.m., take a walk, visit friends, and call it a night at 6:00 p.m. To fuel all that writing, he threw back upwards of 50 cups of coffee per day.</div>
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14. FRANZ KAFKA</h4>
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To keep his mind fresh, Kafka exercised in front of the window—naked.</div>
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15-20. PLENTY OF OTHER WRITERS LIKED WORKING IN THE BUFF…</h4>
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Benjamin Franklin took “air baths,” writing his essays and letters in a cold room while nude. Agatha Christie and Edmond Rostand both liked writing in the bathtub. James Whitcomb Riley wrote naked so he wouldn’t be tempted to walk to the bar, and when Victor Hugo felt distracted, he removed all his clothes so that he was totally alone with pen and paper. As a writing warm-up, D.H. Lawrence would climb mulberry trees in his birthday suit.</div>
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Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-68009510964556496762014-01-06T12:52:00.001-07:002014-01-06T12:52:59.374-07:00I placed 2nd---Fairfield University Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Poetry Contest<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">I've been left speechless. The announcement for the 2013-2014 Fairfield University Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Poetry Contest were just made a few minutes ago, and yours truly placed SECOND!!!!</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Paper <br /> <br /> Has my voice grown weak because of my trepidation<br /> Do you question why my feet tremble on the gravel path<br /> Should I speak honestly about twisting my woolen scarf tighter<br /> Do gusts of do<span class="text_exposed_show">ubt descend Enders Island <br /> Are they consuming me<br /> Why in silence was I distancing myself<br /> Have words simply failed me causing me to outcast myself<br /> Can others see my inner voice<br /> Is it loud, is it clear <br /> Why do I wonder how I ended here<br /> Can you perceive the deeper meaning of my spoken words<br /> Are they ripped from my sputtering heart<br /> Does the pain of the artist's soul seem apparent<br /> Who relates to the yearning of my spirit<br /> Can you try<br /> <br /> Could I speak of childhood pain, of never fitting in or knowing even why<br /> Do your eyes comprehend what I need to say<br /> Is it too much for you to know my father made paper so I could be a writer<br /> Is it asking to little for you to see that AIDS has been a genocide in my life<br /> Is is apparent my mother was a dropout inspiring my adoration to read<br /> Do my words even matter as I march into my passion<br /> Or is all that you see is my incredible sense of fashion <br /> Are you hearing me as I really am<br /> <br /> Or do none of those things even matter<br /> Have they shaped the man you see before you<br /> Or has my life consumed and disabled me<br /> Do these circumstances become my stories<br /> Or can they be inspirations for characters<br /> Do I begin to see I am rewriting my personal story<br /> Am I becoming my own creation<br /> Have I finally taken pen in hand<br /> <br /> I am so afraid to speak<br /> Should I not fear exposing my truth<br /> Have I spoke of the world as I had seen it, as I feel it to my bone<br /> Should you know my world as your own<br /> Is that the goal of a writer<br /> Have I finally claimed my own voice</span></span>Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-87337361111436154442013-08-09T19:31:00.002-07:002015-11-01T12:24:48.079-07:00Oh Daddy!The dictionary defines daddy as the following:<br />
<br />
daddy- noun, plural daddies, verb- daddied, daddying<br />
<br />
1. A diminutive of dad<br />
2. Slang- sugar daddy<br />
Origin 1490-1500<br />
3. An informal word for father.<br />
4.Slang chiefly-- the daddy the supreme or finest example: the daddy of them all.<br />
5. The dominant male in a group; boss, top man.<br />
6. In gay terminology- an older gay man who often seeks younger boys.<br />
A. Dominating or aggressive gay men with experience.<br />
<br />
What brought this post about, well its a few things. I realized recently that if I had fathered a child when I was eighteen, my child would be approaching thirty and in all reality if that child produced an heir at eighteen, I would be the grandfather of a twelve year old. Granted scenarios like this only play out in stereotypes of the deep South, but it is partly what got me thinking.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://sphotos-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1005266_10200468516369595_990244140_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="spotlight" src="https://sphotos-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1005266_10200468516369595_990244140_n.jpg" style="height: 556px; width: 417px;" /></a>The other thing, and the year element is Gay Pride, Cleveland, Ohio this year. I was walking beside a friend who was in drag, in a convertible and I have known for nearly twenty-five years (see picture to the side) and working that flag to a frenzy waving it all around my body. Girl, I was spinning around in circles dancing to the music and, well, just having a big gay ole time.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, when the parade turned unto West Ninth Street, this hot young man comes running off the sidewalk right to me and into my arms. He gives me this huge hug, a kiss on the side of my check and says "I just love a daddy full of pride and daddy your working it-Woof". Honest to good, I 'm not making this up.<br />
<br />
Well, first of all I was flattered that this boy who I was old enough to be his father--he was mid-to-late-twenties found me hot! Granted I have lost 50 pounds since last year, and granted I have new, and incredible teeth--thank you dentures but me a HOT Daddy?!<br />
<br />
As you may imagine, this is the first time I have ever been called a daddy, and granted I have my share of hot guys-- hello'er how else did I end up in the situation that is my life that is HIV-- and honey the list is rather long--anywhore-- opps, anyhow where was I. Oh yeah <lol> being called a daddy. I had my looks in my twenties, maybe early thirties but I was never a Abercrombie & Fitch model, but I thought considering all of the facts:<br />
<br />
1. I am 47years old.<br />
2. I have had AIDS twenty-three years<br />
3. I'm bald<br />
4. Still slight chubby, by gay standards of true beauty<br />
5. I have false teeth and bifocals<br />
<br />
I have days where I do feel at the least cute, in a passable way, and I do dress a good portion of the time to kill. But, kittens, I can't tell you the last time anyone made a pass at me. Sad but true. Frankly I was flattered as hell, and well the "boy" went back to the sidewalk, the parade and I --- well kept moving. I know stupid me.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, it wasn't until recently that I got to thinking; OK, Charlie when did you go from being a boy yourself to being a "Daddy"? Have I now become old enough to have the younger lover, and not the older one anymore? Is it considered passe to still have the older lover at this stage of my life or is being a daddy expected?<br />
<br />
Then I got to thinking, OK, my partner, of 10 wonderful years, who died in 2002 would now be 65. So he was 55 when he died and I was 36. Means he was 45 when he met me and I was 26. WOW! two years younger than what I am right now! Talk about the wheels beginning to spin.<br />
<br />
I never called him Daddy, never treated him like a daddy; but in many ways he could have passed for my Dad, who is 72 and my mother who is 66. He was my best friend, besides my lover--someone who knew everything about me and still loved me no matter what. Trusted him completely, could complete his sentences---but, now I wonder did the gay community see him as my daddy? Not that I really care, but I do wonder about it.<br />
<br />
I've always dated or been in relationships with older men. Sure I've slept with my share of younger ones (always legal of course,so don't get any stereotypical ideas there), and guys my same age but anything worth while has been an age span of at least 16 years or more.<br />
<br />
What if that rule was flipped and I dated 31 year-old guys? Would gay society then view me as the daddy? Would I care? Does it even matter?<br />
<br />
<br />
What qualifies as a change from "boyhood", if you will, to daddyhood? Is it merely age, is it merely appearance or is it something more? Maybe character, experience, the you carry yourself, they way you're perceived, they way you dress? Exactly what is it and who defines it? Is it we ourselves who make the transition and call ourselves daddy or is it some hot "boy"? Can "boyhood" still be embraced as you approach 50, 60? Is it even possible? Or is boyhood something you discard like your childhood toys; or can it be determined just like being a daddy?<br />
<br />
I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and in the mean time I think I am going to try and figure out if I am truly a Daddy after all?<br />
<br />
Good bye, BOYS! <smirk>Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-11358667259417333082013-07-16T10:26:00.001-07:002013-07-16T10:35:36.417-07:00Survival I know it's been a while since my last post. College life as a senior has taken up so much time, energy and effort that this blog has really suffered and for that I am deeply sorry. It is after all my outlet to openly speak, and bring awareness to topics I think we should know about.<br />
<br />
I sit here today, realizing that somehow, someway I have been deeply blessed to say that as of today I<u> have survived AIDS for 23 years</u>. Now, I know what you maybe thinking, especially those who were reading regularly, "<i>Charlie you have only 22 years</i>". Well, I met a friend recently with photographs, that I also happen to have, and we got to digging about information for the Cleveland Gay Pride event, which is where the photographs were taken and its 23 years ago not 22. It is those photographs in June that for me mark the year as it was in July I got my diagnosis.<br />
<br />
You can imagine my surprise that I had made that simple mistake. Maybe some of you think "<i>Well it's only one year what's the big deal</i>?" The big deal is it finally sunk in that my being diagnosed with AIDS has been half my life and beginning next year it will be over half of my lifetime.<br />
<br />
I know, a miracle into itself that somehow, someway I was able to pull through the early days of the gay holocaust, when nothing but death was around us. Somehow, I managed to survive through only having one medication that was available to treat us. Somehow, I survived losing over 600 friends, acquaintances, fellow gay men who in many cases I saw die before my very eyes; while some of those deaths were filled with medical violence--side effects, over use of drug induced comfort and families who in some cases were down right horrible.<br />
<br />
That I was a witness to a "funeral" in front of the White House, with the deceased in a wooden coffin, with the lid off and the young man in that coffin that day was just a few years older than I was.<br />
<br />
Somehow, I have survived where everyone, at every moment was talking simply safe sex. Now, we as gay men live in an environment were there is the discussion about "safe" barebacking. We live in an environment now, thankfully where we are living longer, but for those of us who have lived as long or longer than I have how do create a full, enriching and satisfying life when we have literally seen the monstrous eyes of the plague itself?<br />
<br />
This is something I struggle with a fair amount of the time. It is why I am in college in the first place. To try to create a life off Medicaid, Medicare, and Food Stamps. To finally have a career, a life where I can possibly own something, buy something without worrying about how am I going to buy food. To be a contributing member to society. To be able to work to build an IRA and retirement. To give voice to the stories I want to tell, to give focus to the research I want to do and finally and most importantly, in my opinion, give at least one voice to those of us who have survived the earliest years.<br />
<br />
My awareness to AIDS came as early as 1986, when I was a mere 19 year boy. I lost a very good friend to what was then called GRID. Actually to be honest with you he was a boyfriend. As a 19 yer old boy, I loved him deeply and when he died I stumbled head first into a world of pills and booze. Pills and booze, it was a battle for years with two trips into rehab. But as in all cases time marches on and I fell in love again and by October 1988 I was burying a second lover to AIDS.<br />
<br />
That event lead to my first suicide attempt and my falling "off the wagon" and falling even further into the abyss by frequenting gay bath houses. It is something I am not proud of, I rarely admit it, but I think for many gay men--- my self included-- it was a part of our lives and our darkest days.<br />
<br />
I was then in an 11 month relationship, that ended with my being thrown down an entire flight of stairs. It had been violent all along and it took cement stairs to bring me to finally leaving that relationship. Once again "off the wagon" and back to the baths.<br />
<br />
By 1992 I met an incredible man named Ron Rooy Sr. who simply turned my world upside down. I dried out completely. I stop the cycle of the baths. I was madly in love with a phenomenal man. We were together four short months of 10 years when he died in our home in 2002. I have loved him like no other.<br />
<br />
I think about him a lot these days. Would he be proud of what I 'm trying to do today? Would he approve of the man I have become? What would he say about my Honors Thesis work, a Creative Nonfiction piece on gays in the Holocaust? Would we really enjoy my trying to become a teacher and author?<br />
<br />
I know at my core, if given the chance I would still be with him. today In many ways I still am. He was able to finish my sentences, he knew me inside and out. He was not only my lover, my husband---he was my best friend. I lost so much when he died, and honestly at times I wonder if I have ever recovered.<br />
<br />
I sit here today knowing how blessed I have been. Sometimes I wonder why. Why me? Why did I survive the horrors of the gay holocaust? Why am I now thinking about my "old age" when 23 years ago that wasn't even an option. A career with Full Blown AIDS, 23 years ago was damn near impossible and now it is a reality. So much has changed; and I wonder have I changed enough with the times?<br />
<br />
Am I still living in the past? Has the past overshadowed everything else? What will the next 25 years of living with AIDS be like? By that time I will be 72 years old, and living with AIDS for 50 of them. Is that even a possibility? Will our pharmaceuticals make that a reality? Will our society as a whole change even more dramatically in acceptance or will we still be bogged in ignorance and bigotry?<br />
<br />
For now I am thankful for what I do have. I am, if I have to be honest, thankful for even the struggles because without them I wouldn't be the man I am today. I met a Hindu swami recently and asked his advice for someone living this long with AIDS. He first said in his country my story would more than likely never happen. He felt I was looking at my diagnosis with AIDS all wrong. Maybe G-d chose to come and manifest him/herself as AIDS so I could literally see the face of G-d. That through this "disease" not only see G-d but feel his/her presence all around me; that I may have missed the appearance of G-d in my life because I chose to see it the way I did.<br />
<br />
I know he didn't mean it as G-d's curse on me, as Hindus do not believe that is even possible. He saw G-d in the disease. That G-d is in everything, everyone, and everywhere; we however simply have to see it. That simple thought has changed my life.<br />
<br />
I want to leave you on that thought---can we see G-d in everything, everyone and everywhere or do we chose not see it that way?<br />
<br />
Namaste Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-36260507368651935432013-04-20T11:44:00.000-07:002013-04-20T11:44:06.859-07:00Themes of African American Literature<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><i>The following is for a Modern African American Literature class I am in. There was a lot of work and research into this so I hope all of you enjoy reading this and it is my hope that now i have inspired you to go boy a book or two or more by African American Authors!</i></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><i> </i> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> African American literature locates
its beginnings to the latter half of the 18th century when the African American
population was sadly still an enslaved one. Slaves were viewed, by the vast
majority of society, as subhuman and incapable of mastering “the arts and
sciences.” Their inferiority was even emphasized by prominent white
philosophers of the time. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie McKay note in
their introduction to The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Hume
suspected “‘negroes . . . to be naturally inferior to the whites’” with no
“ingenious manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
However, as Gates and McKay further note, “African American slaves, remarkably,
sought to write themselves out of slavery by mastering the Anglo-American
belletristic tradition”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Gates)</span> and it is this
thought that permeates early African American Literature. The main intention of
early African American writing was to exhibit that they could create literature
that matched or surpassed that of the white community, proving African
Americans to be “full and equal members” of society <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even after African Americans began creating
a body of creative literature, they still faced disparagement from prominent
members of white society. Thomas Jefferson, for example, in his Notes on the
State of Virginia made disparaging remarks about the poems of the first
published African American female poet, Phillis Wheatley: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>"Misery is often
the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>blacks is misery
enough, God knows, but not poetry. … Religion, indeed, has <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>produced a Phillis
Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet’" <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Moreover, African American writers strived
for recognition as authors. Wheatley, for example, had to go to court in Boston
in 1761 to prove that she was the author of her poems <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.
Unfortunately, having the court verify her authorship did not help because
Boston printers continued to be dubious. Therefore, she had to get her work
published in London first.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since Wheatley’s arrival on the
literary scene, African American writers have continuously struggled to define
themselves, their craft, and their culture, and to face resistance from a
predominantly white reading public. Even as late as 1970, at our own Kent State
University, a well-known, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>respected scholar
and member of a thesis committee resigned when Ralph Ellison became an approved
dissertation topic. The nonconformist member stated that Ellison was not a
literary heavyweight and that to focus an entire dissertation on him would be
like addressing the “‘wings of a gnat’” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.
Only in recent years have we met mainstream acceptance of African American
authors, such as poet Maya Angelou, who spoke at President Bill Clinton’s
inauguration in 1993, or Toni Morrison, who won a Nobel Prize for literature in
1993 <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite the rising significance of African American
literature, black authors have shared a common responsibility over time that of
representing not only themselves but the African American race as well.
Maintaining the position of what it means to be black in America permitted authors
to establish an African American identity that transcended the individual. By
cultivating what Carter G. Woodson referred to as “‘the public Negro mind’”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Gates)</span>, authors were able
to prove the intellectual potential of blacks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In sum, African American history and literature are fundamentally
connected. African American literature, as a genre, “testified against [African
slaves’] captors,” “bore witness to the urge to be free and literate, [and] …
embraced the European Enlightenment’s dream of reason and the American
Enlightenment’s dream of civil liberty” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.
This growing body of work meant that the African was indeed human and should
not be enslaved. African Americans today continue to write in an effort to
honor and acknowledge that legacy. The “black voice” that Wheatley aimed to
unearth is the same voice that is present in the works of artists like Ralph
Ellison, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Smith)</span>. Regardless of changes
in American culture and the passage of time, the themes that were present in
the 18th century slave writings continue to be explored and discussed in
contemporary works.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Within the he Vernacular Tradition
reside oral traditions that exert a strong influence on African American
culture and literature in particular. The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature defines the vernacular as that which:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“Refers
to the church songs, blues, ballads, sermons, stories, and … hip hop songs <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>that are part of the oral,
not primarily the literate (or written-down) tradition of <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>black expression”
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Describing the scope of African American vernacular as
well as its detailed aspects has generated much discussion and debate over the
years. One main quality of the vernacular is its disregard for the rules of
grammar and “high style” that was a key element to the Harlem Renaissance. Authoress
Zora Neale Hurston, in her “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Characteristics
of Negro Expression</i>”, which was written in 1934, describes African American
vernacular as “angular” and “asymmetrical”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Delpit)</span>. Other traits of
vernacular expression include a call-response pattern and meter that sound like
a percussive dance-beat. Subject matter often involves facing the troubles and
hardships of life and the possibility of overcoming them <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.
Gates points out the competitive and subversive nature of the vernacular, using
the term “signifying.” In his argument, writers like Toni Morrison signify by
drawing on past traditions while reinventing them for their own purpose <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>itself the art of the
vernacular.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>African American vernacular dates
back to the oral and musical traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Wikipedia)</span>. Early anthologies
of black literature, such as “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New
Negro</i>,” written in 1925, and “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Book of American Negro Poetry</i>”, written in 1931, discuss the significance of
black songs and stories to many black authors, especially poets<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Gates)</span>. In the late 1930s,
there was an attempt not only to imitate vernacular, but also to improve upon it.
Authors such as Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison invited authors to do for
black literature what T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein did for white
culture—that is, to portray the essence of vernacular, enhance it, and turn it
into something new <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
The Black Arts Movement reflected this interest in the vernacular in its re-discovery
of Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. Previously, the
vernacular was viewed as superficially valuable only to the working class, but
it now emerged as central to the creation of a self-contained African American
nation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Keeping this history in mind,
several questions remain to be answered. In an increasingly globalized world,
is black vernacular any longer authentically, strictly African American? For
example, hip-hop, vernacular that is African American in origin, now crosses
racial lines easily. Thus, is it still a discourse shared only by African
Americans? To what extent can an understanding of the black vernacular occur
outside of the African American community? For some, answering these questions
in the affirmative risks hampering new understandings of the cultural hybridity
of the form.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Literature of Slavery and
Freedom, written and produced between 1746-1865<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>in which early African American authors such as Phillis Wheatley,
Olaudah Equiano, David Walker, and James M. Whitfield “challenged the dominant
culture’s attempt to segregate the religious from the political, and the spirit
from the flesh” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>.
Their literature was a mechanism used to voice the inequalities they
experienced and observed, and written language, especially the slave
narratives, was a valuable tool for black authors who struggled to end slavery
through the dissemination of antislavery propaganda throughout the North and
South. Ideals from the Bible along with America’s most sacred, prized documents
and songs, the U.S. Constitution and “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">America
the Beautiful</i>,” to name two—were used by African American writers to prove
the duplicitous standards, behaviors, and beliefs white Americans exhibited to
African Americans <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>.
With regard to spirituality, writers like Wheatley and Equiano petitioned their
readers to heed the Christian message of brotherhood regardless of race or
ethnicity <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Authors such as Walker and Whitfield pointed out the irony that white
Americans, who fought and struggled against tyranny, subsequently imposed a
tyrannical hold on African Americans <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>.
The rationalizations that white Americans used to impose slavery, that blacks
were subhuman, unintelligent, pagan, and immoral, were difficulties that early
African American writers sought to contradict. The writings of early African
American writers proved that blacks were capable of “literary expression” and
thus possessed “civilized minds” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Arising out of these conditions,
beginning in the 1830s the fugitive slave narrative emerged as a popular
literary form even amongst white audiences who were the primary target audience
in the first place. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Confessions of
Nat Turner</i>” was published after Nat Turner was hanged for leading a bloody
uprising against white slave owners in Southampton, Virginia, in 1831, and was
the most widely read African American personal narrative of its day <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Although Turner’s
revolt and Confessions led to even more repressive conditions for slaves, slave
narratives continued to dominate the black literary landscape and counted among
its leading figures Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, and William Wells
Brown<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the primarily male dominated
genre. In 1845, Douglass’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Narrative of
the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave</i>”, was written by himself and
offered a significant break from tradition by not allowing his story to be
written, transcribed, or edited by a white supporter as was often the practice
during the time <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
This marked the beginning of a show of independence and self-reliance that had
not been evident in the black literary community before and it would be this
writer independence that would be decades away for African American women
authors <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
The act showed that a black person could produce eloquent prose and could take
part in the abolitionist press on his or her own terms. The era also saw the
emergence of black women slave narrators such as Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner
Truth and Harriet Tubman. These authors gave new dimension to African American
literature, bringing a black woman’s insight and perspective to the forefront
in a way that male authors had previously failed to do as they were not women
and unaware of how to capture that experience in a uniquely feminine voice and
style <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While the slave narrative was by far
the most common form of African American literature of its day, fiction was and
is also important, with the period between 1850 and 1860 being known as “the
first African American literary renaissance” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Uncle Tom’s
Cabin</i>” was published in 1852, and William Wells Brown is credited with
publishing the first full-length African American novel, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clotel</i>”; or, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The President’s
Daughter</i>” in 1853. What’s more, Samuel Delaney offered readers “the first
black nationalist culture hero in African American literature” in his novel “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blake</i>”; or, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Huts of America</i>” written in 1859. While Frances E.W. Harper
gave readers the first short story in African American literature, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Two Offers</i>” also written in 1859 <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Hannah Crafts’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bondwoman’s Narrative</i> “ written
between 1853-1861), Julia C. Collins’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Curse of Caste</i>”; or “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Slave Bride</i>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>written in 1856, and Harriet E. Wilson’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our Nig</i>”; or, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sketches from the Life of a Free Black</i>” written in 1859 all vied
for the honor of being the first novel published by an African American woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Literature, whether autobiography, fiction,
or journalism, was a key weapon in combating slavery during America’s
antebellum era and it was literature that spoke for millions of African
Americans who did not have a voice. Without the contributions of black authors
such as Douglass, Brown, Jacobs, and others, the unjust realities of slavery
might well have been kept in silence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Following the Civil War, many Americans grappled to acclimate
to the aftermath of slavery and the influx of immigrants to the United States.
Americans were trying to decide how best to achieve a greater and better United
States of America that included equal rights for freed slaves, women, Native
Americans, and recent immigrants <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.
Despite the unrelenting demand to make the nation whole, and notwithstanding the
passage of important laws to protect African Americans, black people faced new
oppressions and discriminations, problems that made the nourishment of an
African American literary presence particularly difficult.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the abolition of slavery, the Republicans passed
the Reconstruction Act in 1867 to protect freed slaves from the white
supremacist ideologies and policies being enacted in the former Confederacy <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. The act also
established the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency that, in addition to other
efforts, opened 4,000 schools which include Fisk, Morehouse, Howard, Atlanta,
Talladega, and Hampton between 1865 and 1870 to help educate the newly freed
slaves <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
From 1865 to 1870, the Reconstruction Congress also passed the 13th, 14th, and
15th amendments. Unfortunately the newly passed legislation making slavery
illegal, establishing equal protection under the law for African Americans, and
enfranchising black men was not imposed throughout all parts of the states, and
the lives of many freed slaves differed little from when they were enslaved.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1877, the Democrats regained
power, and they did very little to protect the rights of the freed slaves.
African Americans were then assaulted by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Wikipedia)</span>. These violent acts
and forms of oppressions were supported by the Jim Crow laws, which legalized
segregation and racism. The decrease in rights for African Americans was also
impacted by the fact that many abolitionists, though they condemned slavery,
did not believe in equal rights for blacks <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>.
Furthermore, the deaths and illnesses of influential African American leaders
such as Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Frances E.W. Harper cost blacks
important national voices, losses that hampered the fight for equality <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although African Americans maintained
to participate in the progress of the United States during this time, it was a
time of dissatisfaction, prejudice, and jeopardy. For example, historian John
Hope Franklin notes that more than 2,500 lynching’s occurred in the South in
the last two decades of the 19th century <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Despite this calamitous period in African American history, many black authors
were still able to publish their work in magazines, newspapers, and
occasionally through an established press <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
African American literature was marked by tales of overcoming trials and
hardships while demonstrating the capabilities of African Americans as authors
despite difficulties being published. Because African American authors had more
difficulty getting their work published, many turned to the African American
press, an institution heavily reliant on African American church leaders.
Through these presses many writers published songs, poems, fiction, and autobiographies
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In slavery, African Americans
overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to survive. During Reconstruction,
former slaves drew on their past as motivation to overcome the current
injustices which they suffered as free men and women and to inspire others to
do the same. Whites could put up a wall, but blacks would climb over it again
and again. They demonstrated perseverance in their lives and in their writing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By the 1920s in Harlem, New York, as
well as in other northern metropolises, was blooming with African American creativeness.
This era contrasted the poverty and racism African Americans faced with
avant-garde advances in music, dance, art, and literature <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.
Although the precise beginning of this artistic renaissance is unknown, many
believe that New York City seduced frustrated African Americans who were
fleeing from the segregation and violence of the South. In search of a better
life that included superior housing and honest wages in the industrial
factories, African Americans migrated in droves. The “Great Migration”
exponentially enlarged black communities across the North, creating a bigger
market for black culture. Jazz and blues, the black music of the South, came to
the North with the migrants and were played in Harlem’s nightclubs and
hotspots. At the same time, whites were becoming increasingly spellbound by
black culture. As all Americans grew more interested in African American
culture, Harlem was dubbed “the Negro capital of the world” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alongside newly established cultural and political
organizations African Americans worked hard for cultural awakening. Writers did
their part to uplift black Americans and develop literary and artistic
traditions in which African Americans could take pride. The author of the
avant-garde “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Autobiography of an
Ex-Coloured Man </i>“ written in 1912 encouraged black writers to extricate
themselves from the stereotypes that had imprisoned African American literature<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Gates)</span>. In Johnson’s
anthology, “Book of American Negro Poetry” written in 1922, writers like
Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, who later would lead the movement that
became the Harlem Renaissance, were showcased <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In their work, African American
writers challenged problematic struggles regarding black identity, black art,
and the political role of culture. For example, writers taking part in the
renaissance held conflicting views as to how important African heritage should
be to African American writers. Langston Hughes, for example, suggested that
“racial commitment on the part of the black artist” was an idea that black
artists should not soon forget, whereas Cullen suggested “that Africa was a
source of confusion and ambivalence” for black artists <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Regardless of their opinions on the matter, both Hughes and Cullen believed
that black writers should stay away from too much focus on “the political
constraints that an older generation” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>
had emphasized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although the Harlem Renaissance
ended with the advent of the Great Depression, the Harlem Renaissance was a
remarkable time when African American artists created positive and memorable
standards in all the arts <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.
Challenging white paternalism and racism, African-American artists and
intellectuals disregarded mere replication of the styles of Europeans and white
Americans and instead celebrated black pride and creativity. Declaring their
freedom to express themselves as artists and intellectuals, they explored their
identities as black Americans, celebrating the black culture that had emerged
out of slavery and their cultural ties to Africa. The images created during the
Harlem Renaissance and represented African American culture served as
inspiration and comfort to the black artists that succeeded the movement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Many literary historians use the terms realism,
naturalism and modernism to categorize the various writings produced during
this time. “Realism” is defined as the “faithful reproduction” of reality while
naturalism refers to the “franker, harsher treatment of that reality”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Finn)</span>. Modernism, at its
most basic level, denotes “a break with purely representational aesthetics,
with the familiar functions of language and conventions of form” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>. Before this time
period, particularly during the 1930s, many black writers focused on the rural
South still imprisoned by Jim Crow and racist violence. Now authors took a
different approach with their writing, and it was clearly very northern and
urban; cities like Chicago, Boston, and New York served as settings for much of
this new writing <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This period of writing generated a division
in the African American literary circle. While the Harlem Renaissance had
celebrated blackness in an age of debilitating segregation, mid-century writers
wrestled with the production of art in an era moving toward desegregation; an
era when black writing, many believed, could not disengage itself from
politics. Many literary historians and critics credit Richard Wright’s “Native
Son” written in 1940 with setting the tone of this period <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
They emphasize that Wright’s book transformed American culture and African
American writing. Wright himself was judgmental of the African American writing
of the past, especially the Harlem Renaissance. He believed that some black
writers were more concerned with acceptance and doing what white America wanted
them to do instead of social protest. Other writers of the time also voiced
protest. William Attaway’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood on the
Forge</i>” written in 1941, examined the Great Migration from the South to the
North after World War I <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. The novel was deemed
one of the most intricate looks at the exploitation of black American workers
in northern steel mills. Chester Himes, in” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If
He Hollers Let Him Go</i> “ written in 1945, illuminated the animosity an
educated, northern-born black man faces from lower-class, southern-born whites
as they struggle to work together in a Los Angeles shipyard at the height of
World War II <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even though much of the writing of
this time was popular in nature and wanted to increase social consciousness,
many writers who grew up and lived during the Depression had an
“integrationist” attitude and started writing on nonracial subjects. Zora Neale
Hurston’s final novel, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seraph on the
Suwanee</i>” written in 1948, was labeled as “non-Negro” simply because its
characters are white and its setting is rural. Others, like James Baldwin,
wrote essays attacking the protest form of writing. It was not until Ralph
Ellison’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>” written in
1952 that many critics believed African American writers were able to
“liberate” themselves from naturalism and the protest narrative” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. In writing “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, Ellison argued that his
literary style was not simply influenced by other notable African American
writers such as Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, but also by prominent white
authors such as T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Because of his acknowledged inspiration by the “Western modernist tradition,”
Ellison received severe disapproval from other African American writers for
“failing to understand that ‘plight and protest’ … ‘are inseparable from Negro
experience’” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Ellison combated
these attacks by stating, “‘I am a human being, not just the black successor to
Richard Wright’” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a parallel vein, the poetry of
the time sensationalizes the tensions. Many African American writers such as
Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden combined technical skills formed in the
modernist tradition with the themes of protest <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
As the 1960s began, more African American writers answered a resounding “No!”
to his question, whether:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It shall continue begging the question of
the Negroes’ humanity and a <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>resounding ‘Yes!’ to Wright’s question
whether Negro writing shall be for the <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>Negro
masses, moulding the lives and consciousness of those masses toward new <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>goals’” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The literary struggle that resulted during this period of
history was provoked by the oppressive relationship between African Americans
and European Americans, a relationship whose histories and realities emerge in
today’s multiracial classrooms. The controversy highlights the hostility that
some feel toward anything, literature included, that identifies or affiliates
with the white majority. Educational researcher Patrick Finn echoes this idea
in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Literacy with an Attitude: Educating
Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest</i>”. Finn states that many
African Americans associate developing traits of the white majority as
“adopting a characteristic of the enemy” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Finn)</span>. Therefore, well-known
African American writers who execute traits of prominent white writers into
their poems and prose get labeled as deserters. Some see this integration as a denial
of their own culture and disapprove of those who veer too far into the already
paved road of literary tradition. Likewise, some teachers believe that teaching
African American students the literature and speech of the white majority would
oppress them further. However, educational researcher Lisa Delpit argues that:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>“Minority
students must be exposed to the language of the majority in order to <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>compete with them and
have access to the same economic opportunities” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is exactly what writers such as
Ellison and Brooks , both winners of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize
respectively, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have demonstrated in their
works, a marriage of culture and convention. Their writings encompass the
strength and pride of African Americans while embracing the style and technique
of the distinguished literary figures of their time.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
Black Arts Movement came out of the tempestuous 1960s when social commotion endured
both at home and abroad. On the one hand were the Civil Rights Movement, Black
Power agitation, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., President
John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X; on the other hand, the Vietnam
War and problems with Cuba. The Black Arts Movement generated writers who stimulated
social revolution, even by violent means. There is perhaps no better example of
this violent tone in black literature than these lines from Amiri Baraka’s
signature poem, “Black Art” written in 1969: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">We
want ‘poems that kill.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Assassin poems, Poems
that shoot” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Black Arts Movement set the atmosphere
for a new era in the lives of many African Americans. The main aim for African
American writers was to write literature that enthroned blackness <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Writers turned
their pens into swords to depict the inequalities against the African American
race and called for African Americans to unite as a strong force against white
supremacy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the Black Arts movement, it is vital
to note several important figures. Fannie Lou Hamer, co-founder of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, was an “unschooled” leader in the Black
Arts Movement <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Delpit)</span>. Prominent and
powerful poets Amiri Baraka aka LeRoi Jones, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez,
and Quincy Troupe found expressive poetry as the best way to communicate a
political message to an African American audience <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
While these key figures helped ignite the poetic flame, average, everyday
Americans spread the message, as:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Black poetry … was adopted by elementary
school students, university professors, <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>working wives and mothers, community
activists, prison inmates, barber shop <span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"></span>aficionados,
[and] athletes” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The poet Baraka also turned to drama
while Henry Dumas used fiction to spread the message for a newly invigorated
identity, placing major emphasis on retaining African cultural roots within the
black American community <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One way to differentiate the Black Arts Movement from
African American artistic and literary production before 1960 is in the
different emphasis works have toward both Africa and America <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
Before 1960, black artists were not focused on Africa as a place of origin.
Many black authors, such as Ralph Ellison, wanted to impersonate and surpass
white artistic models that already existed. After 1960, black artists wanted a unique
aesthetic that emphasized black personhood as different from that of white
personhood. Africa often served as the foundation of inspiration for these
artists. African Americans celebrated “Afrocentricity” by showing African pride
through poetry, drama, and fiction, as well as through traditional African
clothing and hairstyles <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During the Black Arts Movement, writers improved the
vernacular of the black community <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Affirming Langston
Hughes and Richard Wright, who, like their artistic ancestors, wrote using
black vernacular and created themes of spiritual and political liberation, the
leading voices of the Black Arts Movement were interested in building a black
audience, not in pandering to a white audience. They found sustenance in the explosion
of new publishing companies and periodicals that focused on the black
experience. Established publishing companies began pulling from their archives
out-of-print works by African American authors <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.
The Black Arts Movement also was strengthened by the advent of black studies in
American universities. There were now university-trained scholars reading,
interpreting, and teaching works by African American artists <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In February 1948 the black writer James Baldwin
acknowledged how widespread anti-Semitism was in his community, writing:
“Georgia has the Negro and Harlem has the Jew.” Baldwin later succumbed to such
views himself when he wrote that while Christians made up America's true power
structure, the Jew “is doing their dirty work.” He went on to denigrate Jewish
financial support of civil rights organizations as mere “conscience money.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be sure, the Black Arts Movement was not
exempt from controversy, for it suffered from the expression of anti-Semitism,
misogyny, and homophobia. The negative dynamic between blacks and Jews is
accredited to the unfriendly relationship that developed between working-class
blacks and Jewish landlords; the term “Jew” became “a word marking a material
and ideological manifestation of American whiteness” (Gates).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anti-Semitism has had a long history among African
Americans. In the 1920s, for instance, the “buy-black” campaign of the
black-nationalist leader Marcus Garvey was explicitly targeted against Jews,
and Garvey later spoke admiringly of Adolf Hitler (Muravchik).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In February 1948 the black writer James
Baldwin recognized how extensive anti-Semitism was in his community,
writing:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Georgia has the Negro and
Harlem has the Jew.” Baldwin later surrendered to such views himself when he
wrote that while Christians made up America's true power structure, the Jew “is
doing their dirty work” (Muravchik).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
went on to denigrate Jewish financial support of civil rights organizations as
mere “conscience money.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Malcolm X, too, was a vociferous anti-Semite both
publicly and privately. According to author Murray Friedman, when Malcolm met
with representatives of the Ku Klux Klan to solicit their support for his
project of black separatism, he "assured them" that "it was Jews
who were behind the integration movement" (Muravchik).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The prominent role that Jews played in the American civil
rights movement did little to diminish black anti-Semitism. When the movement
first began to gain power in the late 1950s and early 60s, the front-line
troops in the Montgomery bus boycott and then in the lunch-counter sit-ins were
all blacks; but among the whites who soon rallied to the cause, a
disproportionately large share were Jews. The Freedom Riders rode in integrated
detachments, and two-thirds of the whites, Murray Friedman reports, were Jews <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Muravchik)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years later, in 1964, came the
“Mississippi Summer,” a black-voter-registration project conceived and
organized by a Jew, Allard Lowenstein. According to Friedman, Jews made up from
one-third to one-half of the white volunteers who took part. Of the three
volunteers who lost their lives in the project, two -- Michael Schwerner and
Andrew Goodman -- were Jews.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In his book “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blacks
and Jews</i>”, Paul Berman reports that Jews contributed one-half to
three-quarters of the financial support received by civil rights groups in the
1960s. The organizational support they provided was equally pronounced. All
over the United States, Jewish organizations assigned staffers to work on civil
rights initiatives. In those days, writes Berman, “It was almost as if to be
Jewish and liberal were, by definition, to fly a flag for black America” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Muravchik)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What’s more within the Black Arts
Movement, negative attitudes toward women and homosexuals stemmed from the
“paramilitary, social-realist bravado of male leaders in the Black Arts” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In comparison to the voices of African
American men involved with the Black Arts Movement and their work being “more
political”, if you will, women and in particular Bulelwa Madekurozwa was at the
forefront of being black, a woman and an out lesbian.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One such artist is the painter
Bulelwa Madekurozwa who was born in 1972, who lives and works in Harare,
Zimbabwe. While studying in Harare in the early 1990s, Madekurozwa realized that
most of the artists in her school were men who painted portraits of
stereotypically shy but proud African women tilling fields and toting babies.
To oppose this representation, Madekurozwa painted portraits of strong black
women with direct gazes <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(GLBTQ Inc.)</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. Early in her career, Madekurozwa grappled
with ways to express her thoughts and experiences as an African lesbian through
her art. To put it mildly, lesbianism is not accepted in Zimbabwe. Although the
country has an active women's rights movement, females are both socially and
legally disadvantaged much like those of gay orientation in the United States.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since women traditionally were
denied individual sexual identities, lesbians face horrifyingly violent
anti-gay sentiments. As the country's gay community slowly takes shape,
therefore, women are being left behind. While men who come out in Zimbabwe at
least know that male homosexual relationships exist, the inability even to
conceive of a lesbian relationship hinders the coming-out process for women <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(GLBTQ Inc.)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It
is therefore not surprising that Madekurozwa makes only veiled references to
lesbianism in her paintings. In one early work, two figures--one clothed and
androgynous, the other with the nude body of a black woman—embracing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Notwithstanding these problems of
sexuality, anti-Semitism, however, African Americans through the Black Arts
Movement triumphed through relentless efforts to prove that they were not ,and
would never be, “merely white Americans in blackface” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Indeed, the Black Arts Movement
would develop to be the provocative starting point for a new way of being
considered an African American. The year 1975 is an arbitrary endpoint for the
Black Arts Movement whose aesthetic and accompanying themes continue beyond
1975. Any black artist who, through the “construction of hybrid genres, mythic
landscapes, vernacular styles, and revised genealogies of the Americas” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>, is finding ground-breaking
ways to explore issues within the African American community follows in the
footsteps of the Black Arts Movement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By the close of the 20th century,
African American culture was represented in literature, theater, television,
and film. In the 1990s, Toni Morrison became a Nobel Prize Laureate and August
Wilson won a second Pulitzer Prize in drama for “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Piano Lesson</i>” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Writers of this
period produced work that was “determined to cure what Morrison deemed the
‘national amnesia’ around the history of slavery” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>,
and slave narratives finally became a part of the American canon. Other African
American authors reshaping the canon included Pulitzer Prize winners such as
Rita Dove and Yusef Komunyakaa in poetry, Charles Johnson and John Edgar
Wideman in fiction, Ntozake Shange and George Wolfe in theater, and Alice
Walker in fiction and nonfiction. These writers produced work distinguished by:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1) The
acknowledgement of the multiplicity of African American identities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2) A renewed interest in history, as
writers imagine the psychological and spiritual lives of African Americans
during slavery and segregation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3) The
emergence of a community of black women writing;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(4) A continuing exploration of music
and other forms of vernacular culture as springboards for literary innovation
and theoretical analysis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5)
And showcase the influence of African American literary scholarship.” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ultimately, the African American
renaissance of the late 20th century grapples with the diversity of the African
American experience and is motivated by their literary forefathers and
foremothers, contemporary African American authors, while pioneering in their
own respective ways, echo the conflict and painful emotion expressed by their
predecessors. Alice Walker, for instance, comments that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Color Purple</i>” written in 1982 is her “‘love letter to Zora
Neale Hurston’” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Gates)</span>. Gathering
inspiration from those who came before them, African American authors of the
contemporary generation frequently participate in scholarship, studying the
past in their writings while simultaneously enriching it for future
generations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thus, present-day authors produce penetrating
questions about African American identity. Their work reassesses racism and
allows readers to view its social, economic, spiritual, psychological,
emotional and political ramifications. Slavery, though abolished in the
nineteenth century, is not an ideological construct barred from the American
consciousness. Additionally, issues as recently as today leave many “divided
substantially along racial lines.” African American society, as a whole, has evolved
fruitfully over the past few decades, and the voices of African Americans are
finally beginning to thankfully be heard. Many years have passed since the confirmations
of Boston’s elite confirming Phillis Wheatley’s literary ingenuity, yet African
American literature today still struggles with some of the very same anxieties and
yearnings present in the 18th century. African American literature produced
during this period thankfully rewrites the American narrative, creating a more
complex and diverse view of what we call America.</span></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Works
Cited</span></h1>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Delpit, Lisa. <i>The Politics of Teaching Literary
Discourse</i>. Boston, Mass.: St. Martins, 2001. Hardback.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">Finn, Patrick J. <i>Literacy with an Attitude: Educating
Working-Class Children In Their Own Self-Interest</i>. Albany, New York:
University of New York, 1999. Hardback.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">Gates, Henry Louis Jr. <i>The Norton Anthologyof African
American Literature</i>. New York City, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Hardback.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">GLBTQ Inc. <i>African American Art Contemporary</i>. 2012.
www.glbtq.com/arts/af_art_contemporary.html. 20 April 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">Muravchik, Joshua. <i>Discover the Networks</i>. December
1995. www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=9. 20 April 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">Smith, Smith Dr. Brenda. <i>Modern African American
Literature Class Spring 2013</i> January- May 2013. Lecture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">Wikipedia. <i>African American Vernacular English</i>. 18
April 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English.
20 April 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;">—. <i>Ku Klux Klan</i>. 19 April 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan. 20 April 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-42404269981656153912013-04-17T08:35:00.000-07:002013-04-17T08:35:22.415-07:00Claude McKay: "Home To Harlem"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5648pVNUh1qek8f0o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="393" id="irc_mi" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5648pVNUh1qek8f0o1_500.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="259" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <i> Another great " gay" author Claude McKay wrote "Home to Harlem" .</i></span><i>With sensual, often brutal accuracy, Claude McKay traces the parallel
paths of two very different young men struggling to find their way
through the suspicion and prejudice of American society. At the same
time, this stark but moving story touches on the central themes of the
Harlem Renaissance, including the urgent need for unity and identity
among blacks. This was also part of the same African American Literature class that I am in right now and I think should be consider a must read for anyone who is wanting to experience "unknown gay authors" or to grow their "gay library".</i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Often
cited as the first African-American best-seller, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home to Harlem</i>” is the first work of writer Claude McKay's. Perhaps
most widely recognized for his sonnet "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If
We Must Die</i>" (1919), which was written in response to the widespread
black lynchings, McKay originally wrote “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home
to Harlem</i>” as a short story illustrating the "so-called
semi-underworld" of the urban American black in the 1920s, "leaving
no subject, however degraded, untouched". <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> McKay's
novel, which depicts the seamier sides of life for Harlem's working-class
blacks, was </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, at a time when
other black writers, such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee
Cullen had begun to expand the boundaries of African-American literature, and
black music and writing were becoming exotically appealing to the literate white
public in New York and beyond. While McKay's earlier poetic works vividly
portrayed blacks as an alienated, besieged, and tormented minority, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home to Harlem</i>” adds greater depth and
texture to that image through both its characters' struggles for individual and
racial identity and the relationships and sense of community that arose from
them and gave life to Harlem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The novel opens with a journey and a
metaphor. Jake, the hero, is a veteran traveling from post-World War I Europe,
headed "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home to Harlem</i>" on
a freighter, with Harlem serving as both a geographically specific place and an
embodiment of racial consciousness. Jake, who had been a longshoreman in
Harlem, had enlisted in the army for a good manly fight in World War I. He was
quickly disillusioned by the military's racial policies, which didn't allow
blacks on the front lines, so he deserted and took refuge in the sociability of
London's East End. But as postwar tensions grew, the racial divide in the East
End felt tangible and suffocating to Jake--his life in this predominantly white
world felt like a fraud--and McKay's readers first encounter him desperately
voyaging back to ground himself in Harlem. Working the freighter with a crew of
Arabs that he despises, Jake responds to their customs with disdain and more
closely aligns himself with the white members of the crew, whose culture he
shares. But when one of the sailors flatters Jake by saying, "You're the
same like us chaps. You ain't like them dirty jabbering coolies”, Jake reminds
himself that the divide still exists and yearns for home and sameness. McKay
uses these powerful early moments of social and cultural difference to
establish a focus on racial hierarchy that will shape the characters' lives and
experiences throughout the novel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jake arrives back in Harlem and is
greeted by a vibrant sense of energy and exuberance, music, dance, laughter,
including all the sounds, textures, and odors of authentic, passionate life:
"The deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness of it. The sugared
laughter . . . Oh, the contagious fever of Harlem. Burning everywhere".
Jake falls in with a loosely interwoven group of friends, rivals, and lovers:
Zeddy, Strawberry Lips, Gin-head Susy, and Miss Curdy--all hell-bent to enjoy
the fruits of life in the face of poverty, loneliness, and misfortune. As Jake
drifts through the clubs, cabarets, and house parties, his journey continues.
He weaves in and out of a world of sweetmen and hussies, where layers of
brown--"high yaller," low brown, redbrown, maroon, "chocolate-to-the-bone"--are
every bit as divisive as black and white. McKay's focus stays centered on his
male characters, as Jake and his compatriots explore various facets of what it
means to be a black man in Harlem in the 1920s, perhaps in search of what
Marcellus Blount has referred to as an "ideal racial self." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jake serves as a symbol of primitive
African-American vitality--spontaneous, direct, easygoing, likable--while those
around him represent McKay's interpretation of the black male experience in
other ways. While working on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a cook, Jake meets
Ray, a waiter and intellectual Haitian expatriate. In contrast to Jake's
easygoing affability, Ray worries constantly and feels isolated from the
African-American community because of his European education. His sensitivity
and political passion set him apart from what he perceives as Harlem's
"roughness" and abandon. Ultimately, both Ray and Jake flee the grasp
of Harlem's rough-and-tumble life. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home
to Harlem</i>” mirrors McKay's own experiences, Ray signs on to a freighter in
hopes of working his way to Europe, while Jake finds a different kind of
escape--on the train to Chicago with the woman he loves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home
to Harlem</i>” as you can imagine drew both praise and criticism for its frank
depiction of African Americans and use of strong, vernacular dialect. Some,
such as Langston Hughes, applauded McKay's realism and integrity, while others
deemed it exploitation. Black leaders W. E. B. DuBois and Dewey Jones condemned
McKay's explicit portrayals as damaging to the social and political struggles
of African Americans: "white people think we are buffoons, thugs, and
rotters anyway. Why should we waste so much time trying to prove it? That's
what Claude McKay has done". McKay concluded that "it will take the
Negro in America another thirty or forty years to see “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Home to Harlem</i>” in its true light--to appreciate it in the spirit
in which I wrote it".</span></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-49908369103039430072013-04-17T08:28:00.000-07:002013-04-17T08:28:25.398-07:00"Infants of the Spring" by Wallace Thurman-- A "Queer" book to consider<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRWdHAG3WMIpliSqC-23iDSQ1TLCF1KooLum7N8kXABTgC4Gm2vsQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" id="irc_mi" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRWdHAG3WMIpliSqC-23iDSQ1TLCF1KooLum7N8kXABTgC4Gm2vsQ" style="margin-top: 57px;" width="260" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <i>I read this incredible book a few months back for an African American Literature class that I am in and think that this books needs a mention here on this blog. A great read, a must read in my opinion and what better time of year to read this than the spring. The following is a response I wrote for class and hopefully it inspires you to read this incredible book.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><i> </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Set
in 1920s Harlem the story revolves around Raymond Taylor, a young black author
who is trying to write a weighty novel in a decadent, race-oriented atmosphere.
In this spirited satire, which </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">mostly takes aim at Locke’s much-celebrated
notion of “the New Negro,” a concept Thurman mocks as too serious and
uplifting. But he also turns his sharp wit against the character who--- some
would say-- most resembles himself, Raymond Taylor, a pretentious young writer
who fancies himself a Nietzchean individualist, above mere racial concerns, and
dedicated only to art. Thurman’s self-deprecating humor focuses on Taylor’s
easy cynicism, as well as on his daily dissipation at “Niggerati Manor,” his
name for the apartment building in Harlem where many of the story’s aspiring
artists spend their time swilling gin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Raymond Taylor resides in that
boardinghouse, nicknamed with a number of young blacks who pretend to be
aspiring authors and artists. Thurman makes these pretenders the major fatalities
of his satire, suggesting that they have destroyed their creativity by leading
such decadent lives. Owned by good-hearted Euphoria Blake, a businesswoman who
once harbored artistic aspirations of her own, the apartment house is also home
to Paul Arbian, a decadent, bisexual artist dedicated to the spirit of Oscar
Wilde; Eustace, a singer who prefers classical music to the spirituals everyone
wants him to sing; and Pelham Gaylord, a servile wannabe, whose own pathetic
poetry serves as evidence in a rape case that puts him in prison, and also
underlines the pretense in the effusions of his role-models, Raymond and Paul.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Critics contend that Thurman based
his characters on well-known figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including
Hughes, Locke, Hurston, Cullen, Nugent, and Douglas.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring</i>” Thurman suggests that all American artists
and writers--black and white--are simply overrated. He vigorously attacks black
writers patronized by whites, who praise everything black authors produce,
regardless of quality, as novel and ingenious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring</i>”
received criticism with reviewers objecting to Thurman's examining too many
issues and not presenting them clearly, and his not making a universal
statement about the lifestyles presented. But “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring</i>” was thought to be overly subjective and
Thurman overly argumentative in this narrative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After a sober gathering of the
literati, Euphoria decides to close the disorderly bawdy house, another victim
of well-intentioned ideas. Thurman’s clever portrait gallery reflects many of
the competing notions of its time—between the masses and individuality, between
art and uplift, between civilization and primitivism, between separatism and
assimilation. But what truly animates this smart fiction is the timeless belief
that ideas have consequences.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet some would praise him for his
frank discussion of black society. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
other writer has so unflinchingly told the truth about color snobbery within
the color line, the ins and outs of `passing' and other vagaries of
prejudice.... “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring's</i>”
quota of truth is just that which Negro writers, under the stress of propaganda
and counterpropaganda, have generally and quite understandably omitted from
their picture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, some would consider “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring</i>” one of the first
books written expressly for black audiences and not white critics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is this clearly the case in which this
book has been cast, merely to a black audience only?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is possible with the rise in “gay
awareness” that this book once again is being looked at as an early submission
into gay literature?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One can imagine
that looking at this in regard to an early book to deal frankly and openly
about homosexuality that there is still resistance in accepting Wallace Thurman
as a “gay black man” even though there is proof supporting that very fact.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wallace Thurman, after encountering
the same queer black-discrimination from both blacks and whites that Baldwin
experiences—ends “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infants of the Spring</i>”
and his commitment to the gay Harlem Renaissance on a pessimistic note. The end
of the Niggeratti Manor writers’ commune is the end of the Harlem Renaissance
for the young gay black queer intelligentsia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In many ways this also in my opinion is a recognition that Thurman
himself would be dead in his early thirties after what many believe was a
struggling with alcoholism and his struggle with his discomfort with society,
his struggle with self, and finally his struggle with his sexuality.</span></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-10542655148232795132013-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:002013-04-01T07:24:03.193-07:00Beyond John Dunn by Thurman P. Banks Jr: A Book ReviewI spent part of my Spring Break reading Thurman P. Banks Jr.'s new self published book "<i>Beyond John Dann"</i>. Let me begin in saying I "met" Thurman on Twitter, I honestly can't remember if I found him or if he found me but, either way we both share a common trait, we're both writers.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theresident.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/thurman2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" class="mainImage" height="640" src="http://www.theresident.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/thurman2.jpg" style="height: 400px; width: 267px;" width="427" /></a>Anyhow, Thurman was promoting his new book on Twitter--- "<i>Beyond John Dunn</i>" when I approached him and asked if I could buy direct from him and have him sign it-- he did. Know, before anybody gets to thinking there is more here than what I am stating--- there is not. Thurman did not ask me to write a review, and as of this writing Thurman has no idea I am even doing this. I "barely" know Thurman, except for the few e-mails we have exchanged, but if given the chance I would cherish the day I could call Thurman---my best friend.<br />
<br />
This is also a first for this blog, where I review a book, but this book-- well it's an exception to the rule and I wanted to share with you, my readers why.<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">John Dann is the youngest, and also last child of
Susan and John<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dann Sr.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is also the only boy in a group of five
sisters, and the seven of them live in Hayward County, Connecticut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Sr., or Big John as he was nicknamed, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is an alcoholic as well as being an abusive
husband and father in the beginning of the story, who is prone to both physical
and mental abuse of everyone except John Jr.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Life has a way of moving forward and after some
pages into this book, Big John leaves the family high and dry by walking out on
all of them—although he was not really there all that much to begin
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an ironic twist Susan, now on
her own with six children to raise, throws all the girls out of the house to
fend for themselves and only “keeps” John Jr. at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this midst of this Susan also because the
abuser and works here way through a string of men—who John Jr. believes are just
“friends”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This string of men woven
throughout Susan’s life ends with a man named Austin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Austin, well he is the character I tend to believe,
everyone will hate—unemployed, no ambition, a bit of a bum and we come to learn
through the text--- a child molester.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Austin sexually abuses a few of Susan’s granddaughters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While many women would<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>immediately walk away, Susan does everything in
her power to--- in the words of Tammy Wynette ---“stand by her man” including mortgage
her home, lose her family and go into a tailspin of self-abuse with alcohol and denial. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alcoholism and drug use, as well<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>trying to quit, the ramifications on a family
because of self-abuse and finally the toils self-abuse on the abuser all devastatingly
and honestly <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>are discussed here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is this theme that, in my opinion, that
reverberates throughout the entire text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it is not only about the loss, the hurt, the shame-- this book is also
about the hope, the triumph as well as the loss and finally about the growth it
takes to become more than “our problems”.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">John Sr. on the other hand goes through a metamorphosis
in this book and with his outcome, which I do not want to give away, you are
left vulnerable and sensitive just like his family is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girls (sisters), all but one, share their
problems with men, marriage, booze, pills and one even later in the text comes
out as a lesbian Buddhist.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The majority of this story is John Jr. and his
struggle with accepting and acknowledging his own pain, his own loss, and his
own addictions and failed relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The agony here is very authentic and rips your heart out, where in parts
you are left crying as you turn the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But like John Sr., John Jr. also goes through his own transformation,
and we the readers of this text get a painful yet joyful front seat to that glorious
transformation.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thurman P.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Banks Jr., weaves sentences like no other--- there are so many quotable
passages here that linger in you consciousness—I want to give you an example:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mine is a
tortured love affair that I have tried to walk away from, but cannot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My destiny has been to walk these roads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every laugh, every tear, every emotion is
another string tying me to this place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it’s the memory of her dying eyes that hold me with the greatest
strength now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a spiders prey caught
in the web, they hold me, and devour me.”</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is here in this literary narrative an
impression that this story “could be” first-hand experience— now I am not saying
it or isn’t, that is up to Thurman to share if he wishes to do so--but what
this text does is create honesty, vulnerability, openness and an outright frankness
that makes you the reader believe that John Dunn Jr. exists, his experiences—not
unlike other children of alcoholics—has really happened and that Thurman knows
John Dunn Jr. like no other human being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Theirs is an exceptionally rare relationship where one can say anything
without offending, know everything without walking away and know each other to
the core, and still beyond everything be able to deeply love. If we can have that with one other person than we are deeply blessed, and Thurman has been blessed with John Dunn Jr.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This book, if you give it a chance, will be <u>life
changing</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will give you characters
and scenes you will not be able to forget, a book in many ways you will not be
able to put down and in all honesty if some big publisher doesn’t pick this up—well
it’s an outright damn shame. This is the type of book, in my opinion, could be one of Oprah's Book Club choices and if she hasn't gotten a copy of this I think she should!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thurman, thank you for incredible gift of “<i>Beyond John Dunn</i>” and
for sharing his life with us, you were right—you are the only one who can tell
this commanding and important story and we your readers thank you very deeply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Take the opportunity to buy Thurman P. Banks Jr.’s
book "<i>Beyond John Dunn</i>", follow him on Twitter at @thurman_p and finally take time and curl up
with a good book--- preferably his. </span></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-73762308485968976502013-03-27T11:52:00.001-07:002013-03-27T11:53:36.343-07:00Gay Invisibility and Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" What Comparsions of African American Invisibility and Gay Invisibility is There?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the
annihilation of the Jews.”-Adolf Hitler</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On January 20, 1942, twelve senior
officials of the Nazi regime assembled in a suburb of Berlin to inaugurate what
is now known as the Wansee Conference. It was here that Adolf Hitler’s “Final
Solution to the Jewish Question” was finalized, approved, and initiated. Here,
senior Nazi officials presented and approved a plan to carry out a genocide of
the largest scale in history against the Jewish population of the Nazi empire.
When news of Hitler’s Holocaust reached the United States, cries of dread flourished
throughout American society as America condemned Hitler’s genocide and the
poisonous ideology that inspired it: racism. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Five years later, Ralph Ellison
published “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, reminding
America that racism was not restricted to genocidal dictators; “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>” captured the plight of
Ellison’s unnamed narrator as he struggled to define himself in the 1940’s
American society around him, laced with disparaging stereotypes and an
undercurrent of underlying but powerfully overbearing racism, forced him into a
metaphorical “invisibility.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>American society has come extremely
far in the last seventy-three years, and the most obvious elements of racism
are now acknowledged and frowned upon. Whereas at one point those who intended to
confront the racism of the status quo faced estrangement and condemnation, it
can usually be said that today, those who perpetuate racism face alienation
instead. Despite these advances, the fear of those who are different remains a
powerful emotion in the human psyche, and this fear gives rise to a related
social problem: that of sexualism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although our culture may have come to
accept, for the most part, that one’s humanity is not dependent on the color of
their skin, human prejudice drives many to believe that one’s humanity is
dependent on their sexual orientation. Just as the most blatant elements of
racism – that is, the institution of slavery and the political restrictions on
African-Americans that remained after its abolishment during the Reconstruction
era – were already a thing of the past in the 1940’s America that Ellison
captured in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, the most
grave examples of institutional sexualism – such as the American Psychological
Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973 –
have been erased, and culture is relatively more attentive about the sexualism
that permeated society more thoroughly in the past. However, as in the society
depicted in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, despite
these advances, prejudiced attitudes of the past remain in society and in
governing institutions, and the minority in question still faces a underlying discrimination
that often goes unnoticed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be said that the social movements for
equality with respect to sexual orientation are decades behind movements for
racial equality, a reflection of the fact that barricades that divide humans on
the basis of sexual orientation tend to much more substantial than racial
barriers. In “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”,
Ellison’s unnamed narrator faces the latent racism of 1940’s society, and as a
result, confronts a metaphorical “invisibility.” LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender)
Americans today face a very similar situation as African Americans did in the
1940’s America depicted in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”,
and as a result, they face a unique LGBT “invisibility.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, Ralph Ellison creates the metaphor of invisibility
as it applies to his unnamed African-American narrator to illustrate the
phenomenon wherein civilization sees African Americans as a stereotype and anticipates
them to act in accordance with that stereotype, rather than comprehending them
as human beings and understanding them based on their actions and identities.
The narrator’s invisibility stems from an underlying societal racism and
societal inequality, the unjustness of which is often unrecognized by almost
everyone in society, and the existence of which many are completely unaware.
Remnants of African American stereotypes from the past infiltrate the
collective mindfulness of American society. Whites and those in power often
trumpet ideals of racial advancement while either knowingly or unknowingly disseminating
a power structure wherein African Americans are entirely reliant on whites for
their success and achievement in society, and the stereotypes that cause
“invisibility” are fortified and intertwined into the nature of purportedly
socially progressive activities. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The narrator is first sentenced to
invisibility when he encounters the parts of society that still feature a power
structure wherein African American compliance and conformity are prerequisite
to whites allowing African Americans the opportunity for advancement in
society. In this way, African Americans and whites are bred to accept the
assumption that African Americans are fundamentally unqualified of being the
engines of their own success, and any success that African Americans do achieve
can be attributed to the charity and assistance of powerful whites. Thus, any
achievement or capability exhibited by African Americans is seen not as revealing
of the character of the African Americans themselves but of the whites who
provided them with the occasion to triumph and eased their progression.
Essentially, African Americans are expected to assimilate by “acting white”-
that is, adopting the culture and goals of white society if they are ever to
succeed in society, and they are thus required to smother their own
individuality in order to ensure that the white men allow them to advance in
society. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As a result, African Americans
become “invisible,” in that the role they play in society and the way they are
perceived by others is limited not by their own identity but by the
expectations and ideology imposed on them by white society; others thus do not
perceive these assimilationist African American identities but instead “see
through” them. The narrator’s invisibility is manifested in this manner when,
at the beginning of the novel, he receives a scholarship to a state black
college from a group of influential white men in his community. The narrator
gives a well-received speech at his graduation and is invited to deliver it to
the most influential white men in his community. Before he can give the speech,
though, he is forced to undergo a demeaning ritual in which he must participate
in a “Battle Royal” by fighting a number of other black adolescents in a pit
for the amusement of the white men. Following the Battle, the boys are told to
grab as much money as they can from a pile of coins and bills on top of an
electrified mat. The white men then laugh at the African American boys’
suffering while they frantically grab for the money, experiencing painful
shocks as a result. The boys later discover that this money is fake. After
going through these demeaning rituals for the entertainment of the white men,
the narrator is permitted to give his speech. Following the speech, the
superintendent of the school approaches the narrator to reward him: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>"’Boy,’ he said,
addressing me, ‘take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>badge of office… Open it and see what’s inside,’ I was
told. My fingers a-<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>tremble, I complied, smelling the
fresh leather and finding an official looking <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>document inside. It was a scholarship to the state college for Negroes. My eyes <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>filled with
tears and I ran awkwardly off the floor” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Ellison)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The superintendent refers to the
briefcase holding the narrator’s scholarship as a “badge of office,” implying
that the narrator should ponder it symbolic of his new status in society – but
in the framework of the demeaning ritual that the narrator had to go through to
get this “badge of office,” and the fact that the narrator only accomplished it
by obeying the whites and performing for them like a circus animal indicates that
this “badge” is representative of the narrator’s submission to the white power
structure; the “office” that the briefcase qualifies him for is not that of a
well-to-do college student, but that of a slave, because he acquired this
reward not because of his own achievements but because of his willingness to
follow the orders of the influential white men around him. This scholarship is
indirectly responsible for all of the conventional economic successes that the
narrator obtains, and the reality that the white men gave it to him only after
he participated in the barbaric Battle Royal and humiliated him-self for the
whites’ entertainment establishes that all of the narrator’s success was a
result of the white men’s “generosity.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In this way, the narrator and African
Americans in the South are bred to accept that they can only accomplish success
by appeasing powerful white men, such that any success they achieve is not a
reflection of their own character but of the whites’ generosity. The pressure
to conform to white demands forces the narrator to suppress any individuality
or personal drive he has, instead implementing the social philosophy of those
in power and dedicating himself to satisfying the white men around him so that
they will provide him with the success he pursues. By suppressing his
individuality and basing his life around the desires of others, the narrator
becomes invisible. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The narrator sees another face of
invisibility when he uncovers that those who fight for social equality and seek
to end the more palpable and recognizable injustices African Americans face do
so in a manner that continues to suppress African American identity and
anything that originates from a nonwhite mind as a unfavorable and unconventional
approach to social justice. In doing so, they continue to suppress African
American identities, such that even those African Americans who fight for
social equality must do so by acting not on their own accord but as puppets of
a white activist establishment, thus subtly compelling African Americans to
continue to submit to a white power structure and think of themselves as lesser
human beings. Even in pursuit of social justice, blacks in Ellison’s 1940’s
America cannot act on their own accord but instead do what they are told to do
by powerful whites, perpetuating the invisibility caused by African Americans
allegedly necessary submission to white power structures even within
subcultures that accept social equality and claim to speak for the downtrodden
minorities in society. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The narrator experiences this mode
of invisibility when he joins the Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to
organizing demonstrations and advocating for social equality and social
justice. Throughout his time with the Brotherhood, the narrator is trained in
the specifics of the “Brotherhood ideology” and is commanded to promote only
this ideology in the orations he gives on the behalf of the Brotherhood. The
narrator complies with these demands until, after organizing a funeral for Todd
Clifton, a black member of the Brotherhood who was, while unarmed, shot down by
policemen, the narrator feels an internal impulse to deviate from the
Brotherhood’s “scientific” abstract rhetoric and speak spontaneously and
passionately to the attendees of the funeral. His speech appeals to a racial
identity and directly attributes Clifton’s death to racism. The next day, the
white leaders of the Brotherhood meet with the narrator and criticize him
forgiving such an “unscientific” passionate speech and for mourning Clifton,
who the Brotherhood had condemned for his disobedience and for abandoning the Brotherhood.
The narrator argues with the white committee of Brotherhood leaders, explaining
to them that he found it in the best interests of the community to mourn
Clifton despite any misdeeds he may have done at the end of his life, because
Clifton’s death was representative of the underlying issue of racism. It is at
this point that Brother Jack, the most influential Brother on the committee,
reveals to him that their organization, despite being racially integrated, does
not intend to serve as a means of empowering blacks, but as another way to
control them and convince them to follow the orders of whites:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“’…and you were not
hired to think. Had you forgotten that? If so, listen to me: <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>You were not hired to think.’
… So here it is, naked and old and rotten. So now <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>it’s out in the open… ‘For all of us,
the committee does the thinking. For all of us. <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>And you were hired to talk” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Ellison)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brother Jack’s opposition to the
narrator’s actions stems not from any decision about how wise or unwise they
were, but from the narrator’s defiance. The Brotherhood committee holds
obedience to the orders of the whites in power above the judgment of African
American Brothers and above the best interests of the black residents of Harlem
that the narrator speaks for. In doing so, the white Brothers reveal that even
if their message advocates for social equality and defends the downtrodden,
they still seek to maintain the power structure the narrator experienced
earlier in life; they ultimately seek to control the African Americans advancement
of social justice causes, so that anything the African Americans do achieve is
not reflective of their own fortitude and will, but of the white elite’s
“generosity.” Just as the superintendent and the white elite of the narrator’s
hometown granted the narrator with an opportunity for success in such a manner
that he was not the engine of his own achievement, the white elite in the
Brotherhood present the narrator with the opportunity to advance the political
causes he believes in such that he is nothing more than a puppet following the
commands of the white men in control of the Brotherhood. Both the
superintendent and the Brotherhood help the narrator in a way that only
contributes to his invisibility, because they both deprive him of the
opportunity to achieve his goals due to his own character, forcing him instead
to do so by submitting to being controlled by the whites in power. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The metaphor of invisibility is
extremely applicable to the modern LGBT struggle for civil rights and social
acceptance, because today’s society is at a similar point with respect to the
LGBT struggle as Ellison’s 1940’s America was with respect to the
African-American struggle for civil rights and social acceptance. In both
societies, the minority in question faces a number or stereotypes that are passionately,
and often unintentionally, perpetuated by members of both the dominant culture
and the minority culture. As a result, LGBT Americans are often not seen as
human beings, but as a collection of stereotypes, causing them to be, in
effect, “invisible.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>LGBT invisibility stems from an
undercurrent of sexualism in society that often goes unnoticed because it is
integrated into the status quo, much like the way the narrator witnesses a
latent racism and the white power structure that is integrated into the
structure of even those organizations that seem to advance African Americans
place in society. LGBT stereotypes are still very much an actuality in American
discourse that are very rarely denounced in the slightest; due to this, many do
not recognize their status as stereotypes and continue to think about LGBT
relations in a manner that prevents LGBT individuals from being recognized as
socially equal human beings by those around them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just like the stereotypes the
narrator struggles against in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible
Man</i>”, stereotypes that LGBT individuals face today begin in the way that
those in the dominant and conventional culture endorse a notion of “normalcy”
and what it involves to be human that is to some extent denied to those in the
minority and unconventional culture. Those in power distribute this notion
throughout society, such that almost all Americans play a role in the
perpetuation of the sexualism and LGBT stereotypes that contribute to LGBT
invisibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As in Ellison’s 1940’s America,
there still exist significant parts of modern society that are plagued with obvious
sexualism and that enable the oppression of LGBT Americans. In many
environments, the prevalent mindset is exceedingly hostile towards LGBT
individuals, and LGBT individuals face constant threats of alienation,
criticism, and harassment. In some of the more conservative regions of America,
LGBT-targeted bullying is a significant problem owing to the culture in such
areas alone – but even at a well-regarded university in New Jersey, harassment
of LGBT individuals can make a powerful impact. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In late 2010, a student at Princeton
University secretly taped Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi having sex
with another man multiple times and posted the videos of the encounters on the
Internet. Posting the videos online in effect revealed Clementi’s sexual
orientation as being gay to the campus community, as Clementi had otherwise not
made his sexual orientation public. Clementi was so gravely traumatized by the
harassment that he committed suicide shortly after. Clementi’s suicide was the
last of four different incidents in which LGBT teens were harassed for their
sexuality into suicide to occur in a span of three weeks. Incidents like these
make it clear to LGBT Americans that even in the moderately tolerant coastal
regions of America, and even in the communities of well-regarded universities,
sexualism exists and can make campus environments extremely hostile to LGBT
individuals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In such environments, LGBT individuals are
often forced to deal with with invisibility, because they must choose to either
hide their sexuality and romantic desires from the world, or risk potentially
life-threatening harassment and alienation. In this way, LGBT individuals are
unable to freely express an essential and significantly important part of human
identity: the sexual and romantic impulse. Sexuality and love are perhaps the
most primary contributors to one’s humanity, which is why it is so
fundamentally debasing those LGBT individuals, are forced to hide this aspect
of themselves from society in order to assure their safety and social
well-being. Thus, those around ‘closeted’ LGBT individuals – that is, those who
hide their sexuality from the world –do not see these individuals as who they
are but instead see them distorted through a lens of forced assimilation and
hetero-normativity. They do not see an sincere and unfiltered expression of
LGBT individuals’ identities, and thus do not really “see” these individuals at
all, making LGBT Americans, in effect, invisible. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When LGBT individuals do “come out
of the closet” and make an effort to express themselves honestly as individuals
and confirm their identities, the result is often violence or severe
alienation, since, in homophobes’ eyes, these individuals lose their status as
human beings. Homophobes too see sexuality and love as integral parts of the
human identity and experience, but do not offer this qualification to
non-heterosexual sexuality and love. Their inability, and in some cases refusal,
to comprehend and accept LGBT love and sexuality makes them fail to perceive
LGBT individuals as human beings, since they “see through” this substantial part
of LGBT identity. Because homophobes qualify LGBT individuals as “less human” due
to their inability to completely experience sexuality and love heterosexually,
they find it morally justifiable to harass, bully, hurt, or kill these
individuals. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To protest the invisibility confronted
by these students, LGBT activist networks have proclaimed April 15 to be a
national “Day of Silence” on which participating individuals take a day-long
vow of silence to symbolically represent the silencing of LGBT students in
America. The symbolism underlying the National Day of Silence parallels with
the invisibility metaphor Ellison develops in Invisible Man; LGBT individuals
are compelled by social pressures to remain “silent” with respect to their
sexual orientations, thus obscuring their sexual and romantic impulses – which
make up an enormously significant part of an individual’s identity and humanity
– from the world. The “silence” protested by those partaking in the Day of
Silence is what condemns LGBT Americans in today’s society to the same
invisibility experienced by Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man. The mere fact
that the silencing of LGBT students is such a significant issue today that an
annual day of protest is still held to raise awareness of the issue is are
flection of how deep-seated the sexualist tendencies that lead to LGBT
invisibility are. Because America features a hetero-normative culture and the
majority of Americans are heterosexual, LGBT Americans’ sexualities remain
hidden by default unless these individuals make the decision to “come out” to
their community and reveal their sexualities to the world. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unlike race, sexuality is not immediately
apparent, and it is only through coming out that an LGBT individual can
overcome invisibility in a hetero-normative society. As long as the
undercurrent of sexualism that dissuades LGBT Americans from coming out exists,
LGBT invisibility will be a widespread and persistent struggle that most LGBT
individuals have to face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite the advances the LGBT rights
movement has made in recent years, there remains an inescapable institutional
sexualism in many parts of human society that renders LGBT individuals’ civil
rights insecure. Civil rights are an essential institutional recognition of an
individual as a human being deserving of certain inborn freedoms and opportunities
that should not be violated. By denying LGBT individuals certain rights that
are otherwise theoretically to be universal to all humans, sexualist
institutions regard LGBT individuals as something lesser than humans; these
institutions are blind to LGBT individuals’ humanity and they thus perpetuate
LGBT invisibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The LGBT rights movement had success
when the US Congress passed a bill repealing the US military’s “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” policy concerning LGBT individuals serving in the military. The
DADT policy inhibited LGBT individuals from serving openly in the military. The
repercussions of DADT for LGBT individuals are simple: either LGBT individuals
must acknowledge a denial of the right to serve in the military afforded to all
other capable citizens, which amounts to the government’s denial of LGBT
Americans’ civil rights and, by expansion, their humanity, or they must
suppress their sexuality if they wish to serve in the military. The former
option renders LGBT individuals invisible in the eyes of the government, for
invisibility is, in substance, the result of a denial of another individual’s
humanity. The latter option is nothing more than a call for an LGBT
individual’s self-inflicted invisibility for the length of their service in the
armed forces. LGBT Americans that wish to serve in the military had no choice
under DADT; they were forced to either accept institutional invisibility or
accept self-imposed invisibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The most prevalent issue in the
politics and activism surrounding gay rights has been and continues to be that
of the right to same-sex marriage. On April 1, 2001, the Netherlands became the
first jurisdiction to legally recognize same-sex marriage; Massachusetts became
the first US state to do so in 2004. However, as of now, same-sex couples can
only legally marry in nine of the fifty states, and only three additional
states acknowledge same-sex marriages legally performed outside of the states.
Efforts to transformation the status quo and to legalize gay marriage face
substantial opposition from religious groups who object to homosexuality on
moral grounds and do not want to see the state condoning or recognizing it.
Numerous initiatives have been mounted to “define marriage to be between a man
and a woman” or to “protect the traditional institution of marriage.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Marriage is the definitive act of an
institution recognizing the legitimacy of a couple’s love, commitment, and
sexuality; denying marriage to homosexuals by “defining marriage to be between
a man and a woman” is, in effect, denying to acknowledge the legitimacy of LGBT
love. By extension, this amounts to a negation to recognize a significant
aspect of LGBT humanity. Conceivably the next most momentous objective of the
LGBT activist community is to protect adoption rights for LGBT couples. There
is no federal law governing the legitimacy of LGBT adoption, but instances of
this has only established its legitimacy in twenty of the fifty states, and
five states have explicitly outlawed LGBT adoption. The efforts to refuse LGBT
couples adoption rights are possibly as offensive and as conspicuously bad as
attempts to deny marriage rights; childbearing is just as fundamental a human
activity as is love and sexuality; furthermore, love, sexuality, and
childbearing are intimately intertwined, and all of these must be taken into
account in order to fully recognize the legitimacy of homosexual relations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>LGBT Americans who are deprived of the
right to marry and adopt children by their governments are forbidden civil
rights that extend to heterosexual citizens. Since civil rights serve as an
institutional acknowledgement of one’s status as a human being, these LGBT
Americans who are robbed of civil rights are not recognized fully as humans in
the eyes of the institutions that govern them; in essence, these individuals
are “invisible” in the eyes of their government. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Attempts to support and transform the
system are usually a legitimate means of confirming LGBT identity and humanity,
and a necessary step to battle institutional sexualism and work to battle LGBT
invisibility. However, these movements are often met with counter-movements
that endorse ideologies that further seek to perpetuate LGBT invisibility. The
most prominent opposition to movements for LGBT acceptance and civil rights
comes from the powerful American conservative Christian lobby. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Numerous verses of the Bible “allegedly”
condemn homosexual behavior as sinful, which often serve as moral justification
for homophobic behavior or moral criticisms of LGBT rights movements. Not all
Christian organizations accept the sinfulness of homosexuality as an important
part of Christian doctrine, but among those who do, the most socially harmful organizations
are undoubtedly those responsible for organizing what is known as the “ex-gay
movement.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The ex-gay movement is most contentious
for its claims that homosexuality can be “cured” through the use of “conversion
therapy.” Ex-gay organizations such as Exodus International and People Can
Change offer services for “Christian homosexuals” who wish to eliminate their
homosexuality, pledging to help homosexuals “pray away the gay.” Focus on the
Family, an influential Christian conservative lobby and one of the strongest
proponents of conversion therapy, cites an oft-criticized 2009 study confirming
that religious meditation can change one’s sexual orientation. Despite this,
most conventional health organizations disapprove conversion therapy as
pseudoscience, and no major medical organization has endorsed its legitimacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As of now, the scientific and
medical consensus is that conversion therapy is psychologically damaging and
can arouse unnecessary feelings of remorse, fretfulness, and low self-esteem,
leading to depression or even suicide. Despite the fact that the American
Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association maintain
that current research has established that homosexuality and bisexuality are normal
variants of human sexual behavior, ex-gay organizations endorse the belief that
homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that is ethically wrong and therefore a
reflection of poor character. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Claiming homosexuality is a choice rationally
implies that homosexual yearnings are not fundamental impulses (as are
heterosexual desires) and thus that LGBT desires are not a consideration of
one’s humanity, but rather of a lack thereof. The reality that this choice is
associated with sin and moral wrong in Christian ideology means that many
homosexuals are influenced that a fundamental characteristic of what defines
them and their humanity is abnormal, blemished, and morally contaminated; it is
foreseeable that the scientific community has found that such an ideology can be
the precedent for individuals that lead to depression and suicide. Such a conviction
compels LGBT individuals either to acknowledge that they are fundamentally
inhuman or to make an effort to “overpower” their homosexuality. Such an exertion
essentially amounts to a self-imposed withholding of the romantic and sexual
impulses that comprise a significant part of LGBT identity – that is,
self-imposed invisibility. Trying to “pray away the gay” is a methodical and translucent
attempt to make LGBT individuals conform into heterosexual culture and destroy expression
of their identities at all costs, guaranteeing their invisibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Throughout “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”, the narrator perceives many expressions of racism
and comes to comprehend that every facet of society influences him to accept
invisibility in one way or another. At the conclusion of the novel, the
narrator comes to terms with his invisibility, and even settles that
invisibility is sometimes a trait to be incorporated and taken advantage of. He
retreats from society into a basement underneath a whites-only apartment
complex to make his home in what he describes as his “hole of invisibility.” It
is here that the narrator reflects on his journey and comes to understand the
fundamental pressure that has defined his struggle throughout the novel: <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“Whence all this passion
toward conformity anyway? – Diversity is the word. <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Why,
if they follow this conformity business they’ll end up by forcing me, an <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>invisible man, to
become white, which is not a color but a lack of one. Must I <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>strive towards
colorlessness? <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Ellison)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The narrator determines the “passion
toward conformity” as the fundamental social difficulty that he has been grappling
against throughout the course of his life. Instead, he demands an embracing of
“diversity” – which, in the context of the deconstructionist, existentialist
tone and message of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Man</i>”,
can be interpreted as a call for Americans to embrace the identity that emerges
from one’s mind and individuality, rather than accepting socially prescribed
ideology and suppressing one’s identity in the process. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Indeed, when each person is identified
by his own internal impulses and emotions alone and none adopt ideologies and
philosophies that are suggested by others, society has reached the height of diversity.
It is worth noting that the narrator’s resentment of being forced to “become
white” and his condemnation of white’s colorlessness is not an assertion of the
inferiority of the white race or culture but instead should be read as a
metaphorical condemnation of the bland, soulless nature of the ultimately
homogenous society. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ellison’s narrator struggles with
the pressure to conform in the context of race relations and social protest,
but the message he reveals in the epilogue applies to a wider, more universal
struggle: that of individuality versus conformity. Ellison’s existentialist
call to action fits neatly into the modern LGBT struggle with invisibility,
particularly with respect to the invisibility LGBT Americans are pressured to
impose upon themselves. The narrator’s existentialism appeals to the value of
defining oneself based on inner passions and emotions – and what are sexuality
and love but terms for those inner passions and emotions that are most visceral
and crucial to the human experience? Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man seems
to have come to peace with the pressures he has combated against for most of
his life by embracing that which he values as the most important influence on
human thought and action: his own internal impulses and emotions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Applied to the LGBT struggle with
sexualism and invisibility, the narrator makes one thing clear: above all else,
the most important thing to preserve in fighting the pressures imposed on an
individual by the society around him is one’s definition of self. To LGBT
Americans, this amounts to a calling to embrace the totality of one’s identity
as they see it, regardless of what pressures may convince them to do otherwise,
be they from government, from peers, or from religion. The narrator’s calling
goes out not to the wider society or to the bigots and sexualists that
perpetuate LGBT invisibility, but to the invisible LGBT men and women
themselves: however you are seen by the society around you and by the
institutions that govern you, and whether you are inside or outside of the
proverbial closet, do not suppress what you know to be who you are; do not make
the mistake of “striving towards colorlessness.” Instead appreciate, celebrate,
and embrace your “color,” whatever it may be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-size: small;">Works Cited</span></h1>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Ellison, Ralph. <i>Invisible Man</i>. New York City,
NY: Vintage International, 1947. Paperback.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-43132541630934261602013-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:002013-03-13T08:00:12.149-07:00Poetry<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-54711982339950884952013-03-10T08:33:00.001-07:002013-03-10T08:33:27.111-07:00Poetry: Attraction<i>This poem is from my Honor's Thesis Project, which is a Creative Nonfiction Narrative about gays and the Holocaust. Within the text of my thesis I am trying something new--for me anyway-- working in poetry into the main body of the text to help develop the main character who wants to be nothing more than a writer. </i><br />
<br />
<i>This particular poem comes from a chapter in the "book" where the main character, Christoph meets a young man that he finds attractive... hope you enjoy</i>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaK3UipiYk1OOxomorR5hwBtgQc6Gs0Xd_VjvFyiAUYgnX4jIvvQOgSxHnKd1UUrA6XKFmnpZVXj_x9nuFMFzDCdCFYNxzwB2lSFtABkrCz2InVEoADkotURLfKoNfYdE46zsB9ZxDS9t7/s1600/!CFCCyQ!BGk~$(KGrHqEOKkME0UwvUZV3BNTylFbJe!~~_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaK3UipiYk1OOxomorR5hwBtgQc6Gs0Xd_VjvFyiAUYgnX4jIvvQOgSxHnKd1UUrA6XKFmnpZVXj_x9nuFMFzDCdCFYNxzwB2lSFtABkrCz2InVEoADkotURLfKoNfYdE46zsB9ZxDS9t7/s400/!CFCCyQ!BGk~$(KGrHqEOKkME0UwvUZV3BNTylFbJe!~~_3.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Are
you like me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Therefore the hours
gleam<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>If I were to say to you </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>You are a dwelling where
strawberries </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Sweep through your
name<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>As if budding shrubs
remind me<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of some spring of water so
cool, so clear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Twilight rain embraces
your leaves</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Which are stirred by a
dainty wind<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>It is where you transpire
in verdant moonlight<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>You are the lily, the
aster, the white trillium</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Even the viburnum, by
all merits mine</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The frosty star in the pasture
sky, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The snowstorm still
arriving</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>From its earthward
voyage, here there is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>No snow but I dreamt the
snow was you,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>You come to be my night </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>You take on the
dimensions of sleep, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The silhouette of sleep
becomes you</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In
those dreams you fall from the sky</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>With numerous blossoms</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Poetries spill from your
mouth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In waves, your lips
taste like the sea,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>But the seas have flown
away</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Because of loving you,
home is nowhere</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Therefore you are my
shelter</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The song of any Eden we
can mention</span></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-57442142915248236872013-03-09T15:49:00.000-07:002013-03-28T05:57:45.716-07:00Friendships I got to thinking today about friendship. A good friend of my family died March 6th, her name was Annie Walker, and she has been a very good friend of the family for nearly 20 years. The thing is, because most of the time we lived fifty miles apart or more, I didn't know this incredible woman as much as I really wanted to. She had an incredible sense of humor, an impeccable fashion sense and well as you can tell I really loved her. She's gone and she was only 76 years old.<br />
<br />
My mother meet Annie first at an HIV+ Mother's Support group in Warren, Ohio nearly 21years ago. Annie had a son who also at the time living with AIDS and unfortunately Glenn died in 1996 from complications to AIDS.<br />
<br />
I decided to write about this today because it seems like I have a lot of "friendships", but I really wonder how many of them are as close as I would like them too be. I have one friend from when I was a child that I still stay in contact with and she is like a sister to me. But for some reason I got to thinking today that a lot of what I have are decent friendships but as not solid/close as I would really like them to be. What keeps this this way?<br />
<br />
When Ron was so bad and then dying in 2002 I had a small group of seven people who helped me take care of Ron at home so he could die at home. Honestly, to tell you the truth I don't know if I have that now. I say that because I can't ever imagine having to ask for that kind of assistance again. I can't imagine that I have those kind of bonds with people, when many times I long exactly for what I can't imagine already having. Maybe it is me, maybeI alrady have it and am unaware of it.<br />
<br />
I have some close friendships, don't get me wrong--- but I don't as of now, even have someone I could pick up the phone and say "Hey would you like to see a movie with me"... like last night I went to see "Oz the Great and Powerful" alone because I felt like I had no idea to call. The other problem is I have never even tried doing just that--calling and saying "Hey would you like to go to a movie". I wonder what it is I fear? Why is it I have never reached out even for the simplest of things?<br />
<br />
Maybe I need to be more vulnerable and more accessible. Maybe I should not come across as "so needy", Maybe I need to speak my mind more honestly. I was in a group of people when I first moved away from home, a group of young gay man all in our 20's-30's, who unfortunately now all dead except me. I was/am the only one who saw 40. I have a small handful of friends from my years living in Cleveland, but somehow---and I am not exactly sure how-- distance and maybe time have us not as close as I would like to be.<br />
<br />
But how does someone build a "deeper" friendship like that? How does it begin? How does it develop? Do I simply say amongst the people I know that, "I would like something more"? Is it that really simple? I want the circle of friends who would do things together, know each other really well, be there for each other at our lowest and be able to say anything too at anytime.<br />
<br />
Maybe that's all I need to say. That the "acquaintances" I have now I would like more out of. That there are people "I know" but don't know well enough to "feel" like they are close friends. People I desperately want to know better, people I want to do things with.<br />
<br />
I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea here... I deeply love the people in my life, I love who they are or they wouldn't be in my life to begin with. But what I will say is maybe some of it is me and maybe some of it is that technology has changed the dynamic of friendship. In an era of Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging, Facetime,Skype and any other social media venue we can be "together" and not be "together". We live in an era where rarely does anyone write a real letter anymore, that we sit on the couch or chair and have a real conversation on a phone that is tied to the wall. Everything has become instantaneous and I wonder does that include the relationships many may have?<br />
<br />
Either way I will put myself on the line as they say, "I am now looking to build more dynamic, deeper, meaningful friendships"----- just let me know if your interested.Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-85067086952505644792013-03-08T13:31:00.000-07:002013-03-08T13:31:30.689-07:00Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen Essay<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The
primary goal of any literature is to stimulate, inspire, educate and empower an
audience by using writing techniques that employ a masterful and careful
manipulation that will motivate the reader to challenge their conventional mode
of thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, in my opinion, was
the entire goal of not only the Harlem Renaissance but also the goals of
Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let us begin this conversation with
the philosophies of the Harlem Renaissance. It was during the early 1900s, that
the flourishing African-American middle class activated a new political agenda
that encouraged racial equality. The epicenter of this movement was in New
York, where three of the largest civil rights groups established their
headquarters.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Black historian, sociologist, and Harvard
scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois was at the forefront of the civil rights movement at
this time. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“By 1905 Du Bois, in partnership
with a group of prominent African-American <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>political activists and civil rights
workers, met in New York to discuss the <span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"></span>challenges
facing the black community and by 1909, the group founded the <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), to <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>promote civil rights…” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Biography.com)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>W.E.
B Du Bois felt like many other African American artist that through the
abstract thinking required by the reader of literature that the reader grows as
in individual and discovers something innovative about their existence in
society and it is through tis that the African American artist could and would
further their foothold in gaining equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Additionally the Harlem Renaissance campaigners understood that it was
the expression and exposure of the ideas, phrases and artwork would be vital to
identifying not only a successful writer in an arena that appreciates social change
but also creates that social change.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“Together, these groups
helped to establish a sense of community and <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>empowerment for African-Americans
not only in New York, but also around the <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>country.
In addition, they provided a rare opportunity for whites to collaborate <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>with black
intellectuals, social activists, educators, and artists in an attempt to<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>transform a
largely segregated and racist American society” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Biography.com)</span>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is within this framework that
African American artist worked, produced and published work that they believed
would not only promote themselves as artist but also promote the race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>“Characterizing
the Harlem Renaissance was an apparent racial pride that came to<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>be exemplified in the idea
of the New Negro, who through intellect and <span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"></span>production
of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>stereotypes to
promote progressive politics, and racial and social integration. The <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>creation of
art and literature would serve to "uplift" the race” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Smith)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was no single connecting form that
surprisingly characterized the art that emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance.
Rather, it encompassed a wide variety of cultural elements and styles which
would include the traditional form and new experimental forms in literature
such as modernism. This duality meant that numerous African-American artists
came into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia, who took
issue with certain depictions of black life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If the reinvention of the Negro
meant an ability to assimilate while decidedly retaining something called a
racial self-consciousness then Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes fit the bill
perfectly and could be encapsulated in Hughes’ poem “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bound No’th Blues</i>” that could be applied to the Harlem Renaissance
itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bound No’th Blues”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Goin’ down the road,
Lawd,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Goin’ down the road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Down the road, Lawd,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Way, way down the road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Got to find somebody</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>To help me carry this
load.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Road’s in front o’ me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Nothin’ to do but walk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Road’s in front of me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Walk…an’ walk…an’ walk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I’d like to meet a good
friend</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>To come along an’ talk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Hates to be lonely,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Lawd, I hates to be sad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Says I hates to be
lonely,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Hates to be lonely an’
sad,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>But ever friend you
finds seems</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Like they try to do you
bad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Road, road, road, O!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Road, road…road…road,
road!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Road, road, road, O!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>On the no’thern road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>These Mississippi towns
ain’t</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Fit fer a hoppin’ toad <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Poem Hunter.com)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Countee Cullen was born on May 30,
1903 <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Wikipedia)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countee was something of a mysterious figure
as it has been problematic for scholars to place exactly where he was born,
with whom he spent the very earliest years of his childhood and where he spent
them. James Weldon Johnson would write of Cullen in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Book of American Negro Poetry</i> “There is not much to say about
these earlier years of Cullen—unless he himself should say it” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Modern American Poetry: About Countee Cullen's Life
& Career)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cullen himself would reveal a disposition
that was not exactly secretive but private, less a question of modesty than a
tendency toward being encrypted and insightful and in the course of his
lifetime never said anything more illuminating.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen was a rather shy black man
who more than any other black literary figure of his generation, was being
touted and bred to become a major crossover literary figure as he was a black
man, in a time and place where it was rare to have a considerable academic
training who in all effect could “write white” verse-ballads, sonnets,
quatrains much in the manner of his literary idol Keats and other British
Romantics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the publication of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ballad of the Brown Girl</i>” Cullen
would have encompassing themes that would remain noticeable for the remainder
of his career.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The Ballad of the Brown Girl”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I
am as brown as brown can be,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
eyes as black as a sloe;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
am as brisk as a nightingale,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as wilde as any doe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘My
love has sent me a love-letter,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not
far from yonder town,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
he could not fancy me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I was so brown.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I sent him his letter back again,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
his love I valu’d not,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Whether
that he could fancy me</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or whether he could not”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Hare)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In time society would come to know
that he had a complete understanding of himself as a poet; and it is in this
vein that only two other Black American authors before Cullen could be taken so
genuinely considered and proficient: Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Cullen believed that traditional verse forms could not be bettered by more
modern paradigms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went further by
believing that a writer had “to become conversant with and part of a received
literary tradition simply because such a tradition has the virtue of longevity
and universal sanction” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Daniel)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen’s first collection of poetry,
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Colo</i>r”, was published in 1925 <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Wikipedia)</span> and brought him
national fame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Color</i>” would receive universal critical acclaim and fellow Harlem
Renaissance writer Alain Locke would say:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“A genius! Posterity
will laugh at us if we do not proclaim him now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Color</i>” <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>transcends all of the limiting qualifications that might
be brought forward if it <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>were
merely a work of talent”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Modern American Poetry: About
Countee Cullen's Life & Career)</span>. </div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The volume would contain only two
pieces which could be considered racial, but the remaining pieces were love
poems and other traditional subjects with the overarching theme, as the title
implies, was race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the themes of
racial subjects that captured the attention of critics; the result in this case
was exactly what the Harlem Renaissance writers wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cullen was “praised for portraying the
experience of African Americans in the vocabulary and poetic forms of the
classical tradition but with personal intimacy” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Modern American Poetry: About Countee Cullen's Life & Career)</span>. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Colo</i>r” would establish Cullen as a
writer with an acute spiritual vision with sublimity as one of many Cullen’s
strong points as the reader would be<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“brusquely catapulted into the all-too-realistic world of … overt
racism” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Daniel)</span>.
“Color” has the principles of romanticism, whose characteristics are noticeably
absent fro the blues-based folk rhythms of Langston Hughes simply because
Cullen looked beyond his own rich heritage for authorial standards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With the publication of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Copper Sun</i>” in 1927 and his involvement
in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Caroling Dusk</i>” he was regarded as
the leading literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance who according to Gerald
Early was “… embod(ying) many of the hopes, aspirations, and maturing
expressive possibilities of his people” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Modern American Poetry: About Countee Cullen's Life & Career)</span>. Cullen felt that:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“To make a black poet,
and bid him sing was a curious thing that G-d had done <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>curious, indeed, that the voice of the black poet had to be assimilated to be <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>harmonized
with the bearers of an alien literary tradition” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Daniel)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However difficulties, to an extreme,
arose when Cullen stated that he wanted to be known nearly as poet and not
“Negro poet”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This issue can be seen as
departing the goals of the Harlem Renaissance as “Negro Artist” and working to
not only better self but community in the process thus beginning the process of
the “white society” in acceptance and equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trouble was compounded when Langston
Hughes along with others interpreted Cullen’s statement to mean that he was
wanting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to deny his race; however if one
were to do a close reading of his poetry they would find that was
unfounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countee Cullen himself would
respond to these allegations by simply saying:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>“If I am going to be a
poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>POET…
what has hindered the development of artists amongst us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their one note <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>has been the concern with their race…none of
us can get away from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot at <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will see it in my verse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The consciousness of this is too poignant at<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot escape it…. what I mean is this: I
shall not write of Negro <span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"></span>subjects
for the purpose of propaganda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is
not what a <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>poet is concerned <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>with… when the
emotion rising…that I am a Negro is strong, I express <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>it”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Modern American Poetry: About Countee Cullen's Life
& Career)</span>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen would met Nina Yolande Du
Bois, the daughter of W. E. B. Du Bois, the leading black intellectual; and
Cullen married Yolande Du Bois in April 1928, it was the social event of the
decade, but the marriage did not fare well, and he divorced in 1930. It is
rumored that Cullen was a homosexual, and his relationship with Harold Jackman,
"the handsomest man in Harlem”, was a significant factor in the divorce.
The young, dashing Jackman was a school teacher and, thanks to his noted
beauty, a prominent figure among Harlem's gay elite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bring this up because some scholars have
noted that his homosexuality is central to his work, although most African
American scholars try to ignore or suppress it <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Norton)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen’s attitude in regard to his
homosexuality was mixed as his attitudes of his blackness: simultaneously
confirmatory and disapproving, triumphant and troubled; however scholars and
researchers have stated that Countee’s adoptive father, Rev. Fredrick Cullen,
was “a puritanical Christian patriarch and Countee was never remotely that in
is life” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Norton)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While on the other hand, it has been implied,
through research, that Rev. Fredrick Cullen was seen also something of an
effeminate man; as he was dressed in girl’s clothing by his poverty stricken
mother well beyond the acceptable boyhood age for such transvestism <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Norton)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen, hypothetically wrote his
poems for his lovers and dedicated poems to his closest gay friends: Alain
Locke, Harold Jackman, Carl Van Vechten and Leland Pettit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cullen is reported to have been “closeted”
but was well known in the gay underground <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Norton)</span>
even though surely his “frankness” about his sexuality posed even greater
problems and dangers if fully exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This closeted-ness worked to protect Cullen from further discrimination
while also holding a firm grip on his creative imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, with all of that said, it is rather
difficult to decipher, the creative influence of gayness on Cullen’s literary
imagination can be seen through coded references to homosexuality in much of
his poetry.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cullen would develop a multifarious
poetry that would incorporate racial themes as well as his complex integration
of male-male relationships that although veiled are significant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These poems would include: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tableau</i>”, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shroud of Color</i>”, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fruit
if the Flower</i>”, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For a Poet and “Spring
Reminiscence</i>” as well as “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Uncle Jim</i>”,
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Colors</i>” and “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">More than a Fool’s Song</i>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fruit of the Flower”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>My father is a quiet man</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>With sober, steady ways;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>For simile, a folded
fan;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>His nights are like his
days.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>My mother's life is
puritan,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>No hint of cavalier,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A pool so calm you're
sure it can</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Have little depth to
fear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And yet my father's eyes
can boast</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>How full his life has
been;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>There haunts them yet
the languid ghost</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of some still sacred
sin.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And though my mother
chants of God,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And of the mystic river,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I've seen a bit of
checkered sod</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Set all her flesh
aquiver.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why should he deem it
pure mischance</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A son of his is fain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>To do a naked tribal
dance</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Each time he hears the
rain?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why should she think it
devil's art</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>That all my songs should
be</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of love and lovers,
broken heart,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And wild sweet agony?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Who plants a seed begets
a bud,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Extract of that same
root;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why marvel at the hectic
blood</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>That flushes this wild
fruit? <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Poem Hunter.com)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Langston Hughes was born James
Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902 and by 1921 had published his first
poem<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Biography.com)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Langston’s parents divorced shortly after he
was born while his mother and he would settle in the Cleveland area where he
would begin to write poetry He would say later in life that his influences for
writing were Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman who was introduced to in high
school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was during this time that he
discovered his love of books. From this early period in his life, Hughes would
cite as influences on his poetry the American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and
Carl Sandburg. Hughes spent a brief period of time with his father in Mexico in
1919. “The relationship between him and his father was troubled, causing Hughes
a degree of dissatisfaction that led him to contemplate suicide at least once”<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(BronzeBuckaroo)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By 1924 he would live in Paris for a
brief period of time continuing to write his poetry. Langston would say in
regard to art that “An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly,
but he must also never be afraid to do what he must choose” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Academy of American Poets)</span>. Unlike certain
writers of the post-World War I era who became acknowledged as the “Lost
Generation”, writers such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hughes
instead spent time in Paris during the early 1920s becoming part of the black
expatriate community <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(BronzeBuckaroo)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Langston’s poem “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Weary Blues</i>”, written in 1926 was
published with the help and support of Carl Van Vechten and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was among the very first to use jazz rhythms
and dialect to represent the life of urban blacks<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Biography.com)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Weary Blues</i>”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Droning a drowsy
syncopated tune,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Rocking back and forth
to a mellow croon,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I heard a Negro play.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Down on Lenox Avenue the
other night</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>By the pale dull pallor
of an old gas light</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>He
did a lazy sway. . . .</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>He
did a lazy sway. . . .</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>To the tune o’ those
Weary Blues.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>With his ebony hands on
each ivory key</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He made that poor piano
moan with melody.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>O
Blues!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Swaying to and fro on
his rickety stool</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He played that sad raggy
tune like a musical fool.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Sweet
Blues!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Coming from a black
man’s soul.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O Blues!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In a deep song voice
with a melancholy tone</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I heard that Negro sing,
that old piano moan—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>“Ain’t
got nobody in all this world,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Ain’t
got nobody but ma self.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>I’s
gwine to quit ma frownin’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>And
put ma troubles on the shelf.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Thump, thump, thump,
went his foot on the floor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He played a few chords
then he sang some more—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“I
got the Weary Blues</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>And
I can’t be satisfied.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Got
the Weary Blues</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>And
can’t be satisfied—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>I
ain’t happy no mo’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>And
I wish that I had died.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And far into the night
he crooned that tune.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The stars went out and
so did the moon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The singer stopped
playing and went to bed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>While the Weary Blues
echoed through his head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He slept like a rock or
a man that’s dead <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(Harold Ober Associates Incorporated)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Langston’s subject matter was
astonishingly wide-ranging and resonant, with is work about music, politics,
America, love, the blues and dreams, about ordinary people leading ordinary
lives and about a “world that few could rightly call beautiful, but was worth
loving and changing” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Academy of American Poets)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Langston characteristically has be known for
his use of image, repetition and his virtually mesmerizing tempo and rhyme to
join political and social content to the structures of poetry. It would be this
aesthetic that created a modernist feel with hints of religious devotion to the
very power of repetition and the “musicality in the blues, that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>gave rise to Hughes’s voice” <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Academy of American Poets)</span> which was uniquely
his own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hughes' life and work were
enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s alongside
those of his contemporaries, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay,
Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The primary conflict between the
artists of the Harlem Renaissance was the representations of the
"low-life", that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower
social-economic layers and the apparent divisions and prejudices based on skin
color within the black community. Hughes wrote what would be considered the
manifesto for himself and his contemporaries published in 1926, The Negro Artist
and the Racial Mountain:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“The
younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>skinned
selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>they are not, it
doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>tom-tom
cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>If they are not, their
displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>tomorrow, strong
as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>within ourselves”
(BronzeBuckaroo).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hughes was unapologetically black at
a time when blackness was no longer fashionable, and, he didn’t go much beyond
the themes of black is beautiful as he explored the black human condition in an
assortment of depths. His foremost concern was the uplift of his people who he
judged himself the acceptable appreciator of and whose potencies, resiliency, bravery,
and wittiness he wanted to record as part of the general American experience.
Thus, his poetry and fiction centered generally on insightful views of the
working class lives of blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of
struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African
American identity and its diverse culture.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In visual media, Hughes has been the
topic of two theatrical plays by African American playwrights whose subject
matter involved in part or whole the fact that he was gay, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hannibal of the Alps</i>” by Michael
Dinwiddie and “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paper Armor</i>” by Eisa
Davis<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(BronzeBuckaroo)</span>. In the 1989 film, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Looking for Langston</i>” by British
filmmaker Isaac Julien, Hughes is recovered as a black gay icon from where
there is an unswerving effort to disregard or at least restrain his
homosexuality because he is such a towering figure in African American
literature; his iconic status among the African American community is believed
to be based on his heterosexuality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The question for the 21<sup>st</sup>
century reader of Hughes’s work is how to read his poems without reducing his
works to merely politics or denying the political density.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hughes himself saw the political and the
poetic as undividable and went on record by saying:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>Most of my own poems are
racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am as sincere as I know how to be in these
poems and yet every reading I <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>answer
questions like these from people: ‘Do you think Negros should always <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>write about
Negros?’ ‘I wish you wouldn’t read some of these poems to white <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>folks.’ ‘How do
you find anything interesting in a place like a cabaret?’ ‘Why do <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>you write
about black folks? You aren’t black.” (and finally) ‘What makes you do <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>so many jazz poems <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Academy of American Poets)</span>?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It has been a distinguished fact
that the formal devices, rhetoric, anaphora and rhyme as well as the innovative
and captivating incorporation of the Blues come from a cultural tradition that
had never had a voice in poetry. As we his readers we are pulled into his work
because of its symbolic and ancestral reflections as well as the mere sounds
that reverberate the musical quality of words that would drive him into the
cultural fountain of African American music and can clearly be seen in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Po’ Boy Blues</i>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Po' Boy Blues”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>When I was home de</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Sunshine seemed like gold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>When I was home de</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Sunshine seemed like
gold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Since I come up North de</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Whole damn world's
turned cold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I was a good boy,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Never done no wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Yes, I was a good boy,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Never done no wrong,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>But this world is weary</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>An' de road is hard an'
long.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I fell in love with</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A gal I thought was
kind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Fell in love with</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A gal I thought was
kind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>She made me lose ma
money</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>An' almost lose ma mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Weary, weary,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Weary early in de morn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Weary, weary,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Early, early in de morn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I's so weary</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I wish I'd never been
born <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Academy of American Poets)</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the greatest ironies in the
life of Langston Hughes, The People’s Poet, was his plausible silence regarding
the oppression of gays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a gay man, Hughes
lived that secret life, much like Cullen, silently in the confines of a very
constricted but well-constructed closet; one that still in many regards
shelters him today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of Langston Hughes poem called
"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell Me</i>," he talks his
sorrow. For instances in "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell Me</i>"
he wrote:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Final
Curve"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Good
evening, daddy</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know you’ve heard</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The
boogie-woogie rumble</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of
a dream deferred</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Boogie:
1 a.m."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why
should it be my loneliness,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why
should it be my song,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Why
should it be my dream</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>deferred</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>overlong?
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">( Tangient LLC.)</span>”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He was referring to the racism and
discrimination that he and his fellow black people faced through. Then he talks
about "dream deferred." So what does dream deferred mean? It means
when your dreams are postpone or putt off. Most of Langston Hughes poems talk
about the dream deferred and that is why it is often repeated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem is gestalt in which the phrase “Why
should it be my” is used three times to highlight the personal anguish over
loneliness and the sheer unattainability of dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “it” of the poem can be seen as racism,
poverty, homosexuality or a host of other causes that make the dream
unachievable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some academics and biographers today
recognize that Hughes was a homosexual and incorporated homosexual codes in
many of his poems, similar in manner to Walt Whitman and most patently in the
short story “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blessed Assurance</i>” which
deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and queerness <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">(BronzeBuckaroo)</span>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>With tunnel vision,
Hughes framed Delmar's story within the structure of the <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>black church, and many of us will recognize his special
relationship with the choir <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>director
as they sneak off alone to the Village, when the choir visits New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>While
the father obsesses over what he considers his son's obvious effeminacy, <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>things come to a
head when the director, a Dr. Manley Jaxon, writes and dedicates <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>an original anthem to Delmar based
on the story of Ruth in the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
of us <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>with a queer eye
for the bible know that some theologians now consider the story <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>of
Ruth and Naomi to be one of a few same-sex relationships remotely possible in <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>the scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those of us with a working knowledge of black
same-gender <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"></span>history
will also recognize the peculiar spelling of the doctor's last name as that of <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span>Frankie Jaxon, a
transgendered musician<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Jarrell)</span>”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like Cullen, Hughes had close
alliances with such gay men as Alain Locke, Noel Sullivan, Richard Bruce
Nugent, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and Wallace Thurman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is my hope that someday that both
Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen’s literary legacy can be used as the cornerstone
in which we can rebuild their reputation as the gay poet laureate and the
inaugurator’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the black gay male
poetic tradition. As this kind of dialogue continues as the reading public is
made aware that sexuality has great consequences for artist creativity, and the
closet is deconstructed, surely Hughes and Cullen’s as well as others will take
their place just not as race and folk poet, but as one whose multifaceted
achievement includes battling oppression through their veiled “homosexual expressivity”.
Then we will be able to understand that they were not silent about their
gayness after all.</span></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-size: small;">Works Cited</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 11.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></h1>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Academy of American Poets. <u>Poets. org: From the
Academy of American Poets</u>. 1997. 17 February 2013 <http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/323>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Tangient LLC. <u>Analysis of Langston Hughes</u>.
2013. 23 February 2013
<http://trcs.wikispaces.com/Analysis+of+Langston+Hughs+Poems>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Biography.com. <u>Bio Classroom</u>. n.d. 22 February
2013 <http://www.biography.com/tv/classroom/harlem-renaissance>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">—. <u>The Biography Channel Website</u>. 2013. 17
February 2013
<http://www.biography.com/print/profile/langston-hughes-9346313>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">BronzeBuckaroo. <u>The Life of Langston Hughes </u>.
2 June 2007. 23 February 2013 <http://www.lifeoflangstonhughes.blogspot.com>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Daniel, Walter C. <u>Georgetown College: Countee
Cullen</u>. n.d. 17 February 2013
<http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/cullen.html>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Hare, John Bruno. <u>Internet Scared Text Archive</u>.
2010. 22 February 2013 <http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch295.htm>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. <u>Poetry
Foundation</u>. 1987. 23 February 2013
<http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176785>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Jarrell, Corey. <u>Corey @ I'll Keep You Posted</u>.
22 May 2009. 23 February 2013 <http://illkeepyouposted.typepad.com/ill_keep_you_posted/2009/05/forty-two-years-ago-on-this-date-langston-hughes-made-his-transition-fromthe-peoples-poetto-eternal-literary-icon-in-this-a.html>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<u><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Modern American Poetry: About Countee Cullen's Life
& Career</span></u><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">. February 2000. 22
February 2013
<http://www.english.illonois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cullen/life.htm>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Norton, Rictor. <u>Gay History and Literature</u>.
1998. 17 February 2013 <http:// rictornorton.co.uk/cullen.htm>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Poem Hunter.com. <u>Poem Hunter.com</u>. 27 March
2010. 23 February 2013
<http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bound-no-th-blues/>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Smith, Dr. Brenda. "Senior Seminar Class
Notes." Canton, Ohio, 1- 22 February 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBibliography" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Wikipedia. <u>Wikipedia: Countee Cullen</u>. 21
February 2013. 22 February 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countee_Cullen>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-6371144679920465832013-03-08T13:07:00.001-07:002013-03-08T13:07:29.465-07:00Gay and Growing OlderOne day last week, after having stepped out of the shower, barely awake and having applied the shaving cream to my face I looked in the mirror. I wasn't wearing my glasses, didn't have my false teeth in and said "Who is that old man in the mirror?"<br />
<br />
It was disheartening in many ways to realize that the old man in the mirror was me. When exactly did that happen? Now I know what some of you maybe thinking "Charlie, your only forty-six it isn't the end of the world"; and you know something you are right but I also know that for the first time in my life I have really accepted the fact that I am and have been officially a middle-aged gay man.<br />
<br />
I was living as an openly gay man at eighteen, even though my family would not know that till I was twenty- one, I was living with HIV by the time I was twenty-four and had my AIDS diagnosis at twenty-five. I buried my first friend who died of GRID--what became AIDS-- in 1986 and my first lover died in October 1988, I was in rehab later that same year. Two suicide attempts followed in 1989 and you could say it has been a hell of a life all along. It's never been easy, many times downright painful to say the least.<br />
<br />
The oppressing poverty, the breaking away from a religious cult, recovering from a sexual assault, recovering from a drug and alcohol addiction, surviving a period of eleven months in an abusive relationship that ended with me shoved down a flight of stairs, and the list seems endless--because they is so much more I could talk about but many times do not wish to do so.<br />
<br />
Yet that "old man" is still in my mirror, looking at me and in many ways "Saying who are you?" I never thought I would even be this old to tell you the truth. I am one of six people I personally know who have lived over twenty years with HIV/AIDS. Now I know there are others but are they in my life-- no. Do I personally know them--- no. Nearly all of my friends of the late 1980's to mid 1990's are gone. Dead; and to be honest--brutally so if I have to be completely honest--- I thought I would be among them....the dead.<br />
<br />
I'm not by any stretch saying, implying that I want to be dead; that is far from the truth but the experiences I have lived through really showed no other way. It was literally living one day at a time, if you woke up you were thankful that you were and did your best to live your best possible life for that day. For me that kind of existence went on for YEARS!<br />
<br />
No plans for the distant future, no IRA, no retirement fund, no plan for retirement and certainly no plan for what my life would be like at nearly 50. Some of it I have been very blessed-- a great and supportive family who has been there every step of the way, an incredible man who literally was the great love of my life for ten wonderful years and now finally getting the education I have wanted for a very long time. I have even been accepted to a Graduate Program-- if you would have told that to me ten years ago I would have said you were out of your mind.<br />
<br />
But growing older, has some down sides--especially... in my opinion... when your gay. You no longer the hot young thing fresh on the seen, your no longer the twenty-something gay boy. You looks begin to slightly fade, grey hair sneaks (thank you Cancer Radiation treatments) and in my case fell out (thank you AZT for that one). I feel like I woke up one day and finally realized that realistically I could be the father of a 29 year old--how did that happen? I've gone from the "boy" to being the "daddy"-- you will understand that if your familiar with gang slang.<br />
<br />
Being gay and being forty-six is almost like being eighty; not there isn't anything wrong with being eighty but how many gay guys are still being pursued at eighty I ask you? When you live in a culture of youth, beauty, the great physique that for many revolves around the bars, the dances, the circuit parties and you know what sooner or later you realize your not as hot as you thought you were.<br />
<br />
Now I was never really the "party type" and I can tell you the last time I was in a gay bar--Chicago, July of 2012 while on vacation--- and I can say I felt old. Maybe it's the way I have seen myself the last few months and I know deep down I need to change it.<br />
<br />
Being gay and going on 50 is not the end of the world, and in my case it will literally be the beginning with my MFA in Creative Writing by that time. Life will really begin and in a big way. I have survived... and you know something I will here and now acknowledge I am a tough old bitch to do so. 22 years living with AIDS this July, 4 rounds of Cancer, 4 rounds of Pneumonia, one round of Meningitis and I'm still standing--takes a lot to to take this bitch down.<br />
<br />
In the mean time I am going to enjoy the "old man" in the mirror, kick up my heels and in the words of the "Flintstones" ....."Have a GAY ole time"Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-24538787931127546512013-03-08T12:36:00.004-07:002013-03-08T13:33:18.643-07:00Auschwitz (poetry)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><i> This poem was just written a few weeks back and will be included in my Honor's Thesis which is Creative Nonfiction and hopefully when finished in December will be published. </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><i>My we never forget</i></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><i> </i> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUjLGo2ClZx7Pj1UgqS0loXDzeqRBjZ-quhKS-UctBWFZ14afiaufsYyfuzqFeEiVt7JB5yamKUbwPC69DyAEpwsaWarEm-VLOsBnDM3KENjzblXMxAHXhbjY2L5x061XRO5QO5UdJS8W/s1600/Australian-Holocaust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUjLGo2ClZx7Pj1UgqS0loXDzeqRBjZ-quhKS-UctBWFZ14afiaufsYyfuzqFeEiVt7JB5yamKUbwPC69DyAEpwsaWarEm-VLOsBnDM3KENjzblXMxAHXhbjY2L5x061XRO5QO5UdJS8W/s320/Australian-Holocaust.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Europe's
outcasts viciously sleep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Begging
God for their souls </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">What
a horrendous thing - to wake the following day</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Realizing
freedom is now transported away</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Into
ghettos they walk in a communal custody </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">They
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">In
the coldness, Auschwitz’s mouth is opening wide.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Is
there a God in Heaven </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">If
so show us your great authority!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Why
must we plunge into abyss </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Of
a concentration camp</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">To
be rendered our souls </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">By
Auschwitz’s great might</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">They
are interred - day and night.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Oh,
Auschwitz, Auschwitz, Your devastation is so wide -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">The
unknowing drove in, ignorant of what's inside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Run
...Run for your very lives!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">You've
been brought to The Executioner- and few survive.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">It
is easy to swallow these us whole -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Effectively
you murder body and soul</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Directly
from the trains - rushed through your doors...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">As
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Auschwitz
you seem hidden away</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">As
your soil turns red with blood</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Something
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Or
there will remain not one.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Auschwitz
chimneys bursting with the wafting burn </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Human
remains gusting in the air are churned</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Swirling
dead who inhabit thoughts of remembrance</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Abandoned
in our vacant painful trance</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Dug
pits hidden beyond the eyes of God</span></div>
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endures only if no one sees</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Covered
over by Them, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">So
that no one would envision this place</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">To
hide what was done –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">What
of us remains is barely a trace.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">The
demonic Nazis smile, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Trying
to attract and hypnotize.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">It
is not so hard to mislead the trusting masses</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Could
God really be giving these us up to die?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Guiltless
weeping eyes having to say “Good bye"</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">We
think it's ended </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"...it is resolved, it is over”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">We
want to believe they screamed their last cries</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Listen
carefully, and you will hear the vibration,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Of
Auschwitz’s faint heartbeat, beneath the soil</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">In
our weakness we call </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">The
criminals ‘Them” and “They”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Are
our souls so distinctive and fearless</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">That
we'd have arose and stood in the way?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-86979564240510484992013-02-23T08:58:00.000-07:002013-02-23T08:58:17.849-07:00"Bound No'th Blues" by Langston Hughes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Since yesterday I posted a poetry piece my Countee Cullen I thought it only fair that I also post one from Langston Hughes who is "rumored" to have been gay as well. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><img class="mainImage" src="http://images.wisconsinhistory.org/700007030009/0703000070-l.jpg" style="height: 407px; width: 354px;" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bound No’th Blues”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Goin’
down the road, Lawd,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Goin’
down the road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Down
the road, Lawd,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Way,
way down the road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Got
to find somebody</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To
help me carry this load.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Road’s
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nothin’
to do but walk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Road’s
in front of me,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Walk…an’
walk…an’ walk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hates
to be lonely,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lawd,
I hates to be sad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Says
I hates to be lonely,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hates
to be lonely an’ sad,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
ever friend you finds seems</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like
they try to do you bad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Road,
road, road, O!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Road,
road…road…road, road!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Road,
road, road, O!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
the no’thern road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These
Mississippi towns ain’t</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fit
fer a hoppin’ toad </span>Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-73910496698396114312013-02-22T12:15:00.000-07:002013-02-22T12:15:00.342-07:00Countee Cullen<pre> From author, poet and (possibly) gay man-- Countee Cullen (1903- 1946) "Brown Girl". </pre>
<pre>I wanted to share this here as February is drawing to a close and so is African American</pre>
<pre>History month. I also wanted to share this because I think Countee is nearly forgotten </pre>
<pre>by the vast majority, except in the case of college classes. I believe that in order to know </pre>
<pre>exactly where we are going we have to fully understand and appreciate where we come from.</pre>
<br /><pre> <img class="mainImage" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcbQS9y8tLmMZ3-8CKLr_NXvVygMvC8v5ajLEGyZuXOqiLrAY7do6T581k4Tnvr89ojGPjQ-OocDRxJKhMBlQZ6NZHa_1HpndFexnAgjUewWVZ-0M0crCuAkxkUejYoCHrIA3tWV98iM/s1600/z96126354.jpg" /> </pre>
<pre> </pre>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<pre> The Brown Girl</pre>
</div>
<pre> </pre>
<pre> ‘I am as brown as brown can be,
My eyes as black as a sloe;
I am as brisk as a nightingale,
And as wilde as any doe.
‘My love has sent me a love-letter,
Not far from yonder town,
That he could not fancy me,
Because I was so brown.
‘I sent him his letter back again,
For his love I valu’d not,
Whether that he could fancy me
Or whether he could not.
‘He sent me his letter back again,
That he lay dangerous sick,
That I might then go speedily
To give him up his faith.’
Now you shall hear what love she had
Then for this love-sick man;
She was a whole long summer’s day
In a mile a going on.
When she came to her love’s bed-side,
Where he lay dangerous sick,
She could not for laughing stand
Upright upon her feet.
She had a white wand all in her hand,
And smoothd it all on his breast;
‘In faith and troth come pardon me,
I hope your soul’s at rest.
‘I’ll do as much for my true-love
As other maidens may;
I’ll dance and sing on my love’s grave
A whole twelvemonth and a day.’</pre>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-69692004286961634592013-02-13T11:12:00.000-07:002013-02-13T11:15:47.836-07:00An AIDS Free Generation: Is it possiblePresident Barack Obama included AIDS in his first State of the Union
speech after his re-election:<br />
<br />
<i>“.... the United States will join with our allies to
eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades by.... saving the
world’s children from preventable deaths; and by realizing the promise
of an AIDS-free generation, which is within our reach.”</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Watching the State of the Union last night I was taken that President Obama made the mention that we could have an AIDS free generation and not only have it but it is within reach. This clearly, to me, seems like an incredible idea but I seriously have my doubts--- and here is why:<br />
<ol>
<li>I have been involved with the AIDS crisis since 1986 when I first became aware of it at the tender age of just 19 years old when a friend of mine was diagnosed with what then was "the gay cancer" and was within six months dead! That has been nearly thirty years of involvement and I have heard a lot of things in those thirty years that promise great advances, possible cures and even scheduled treatments. I also have watched six hundred friends die from AIDS before I stopped counting. I also know that we are far from an AIDS free generation when it seems so little is being done.</li>
<li><u><b>FACT:</b></u> As the U.S. observes the tenth anniversary of the <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pepfar.gov&esheet=50562807&lan=en-US&anchor=President%27s+Emergency+Plan+for+AIDS+Relief&index=1&md5=8af918a97cdbe55a8dfda68bb9b68415" target="_blank">President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief</a> (PEPFAR), the landmark global AIDS
program which President George W. Bush first proposed in his 2003 State
of the Union address, advocates from <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aidshealth.org&esheet=50562807&lan=en-US&anchor=AIDS+Healthcare+Foundation+%28AHF%29&index=2&md5=74b937a0d21fa0fe35f97df9e4831fc9" target="_blank">AIDS
Healthcare Foundation (AHF)</a> <b>urged President Obama to reconsider
recent funding cuts he made</b> to the lifesaving AIDS program which has
saved millions of lives worldwide. AHF advocates also note that given
his actions versus his rhetoric, President Obama’s highly touted goal of
an ‘AIDS-free generation’—which received only a glancing mention in his
State of the Union address last nightt—is unlikely to be achieved, as the
funding cuts he’s instituted take devastating—and deadly—effect globally.
“By all accounts, PEPFAR has been a tremendous success, saving millions
of lives while also serving as one of America’s most successful
diplomacy efforts over the past decade,” said <b>Michael Weinstein</b>,
<a class="itxtnewhook itxthook" href="http://www.streetinsider.com/#" id="itxthook1" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: none; border: 0px none transparent; display: inline; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap" id="itxthook1p"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap itxtnewhookspan" id="itxthook1w" style="background-color: transparent; border-color: transparent transparent rgb(0, 204, 0); border-style: none none solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #009900; font-size: 100%; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px 0px 1px ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important;">President</span><img class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" id="itxthook1icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="margin-bottom: 0px!important; margin-left: 0px!important; margin-right: 0px!important; margin-top: 0px!important; padding-bottom: 0px!important; padding-left: 4px!important; padding-right: 0px!important; padding-top: 0px!important; vertical-align: baseline!important;" /></span></a> of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “<b>However, President Obama is
also the first U.S. president to cut global AIDS funding, a shameful
retreat at a time when, according to World Health Organization, there
are 6.8 million who need treatment now but aren't receiving it</b>, and at a
time when we are seeing the real impact of treatment on saving lives and
reducing new infections.”<br />
<div class="float_left">
</div>
3. <u><b>FACT:</b></u> A <a href="http://www.chnnyc.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-Grindr-PR-FINAL.docx1.pdf" target="_hplink">new survey focused on gay and bisexual men</a> who use apps such as Grindr, Scruff and Manhunt to meet sexual partners found <b>that nearly half had engaged in unprotected sex. </b><br />
Conducted by New York's Community Healthcare Network (CHN), "Zero
Feet Away: Perpective on HIV/AIDS and Unprotected Sex in Men Who Have
Sex With Men Utilizing Location-based Mobile Apps" found t<b>hat although
80 percent of respondents said they were knowledgeable in how the HIV
virus was transmitted, <u>while 46.4 percent admitted to having bareback sex
always, often or sometimes</u></b><u>. </u><br />
The most frequently-cited reason for bare-backing among the 725 gay
and bisexual men who were surveyed was "with condoms, [sex] does not
feel the same." <br />
"Clearly, we've come a long way in educating people about HIV and
AIDS," Dr. Freddy Molano, Assistant Vice President of HIV Programs and
Services at CHN, said in the report. "Yet among certain populations,
HIV/AIDS is on the ride, and that's alarming." <br />
Added co-author Renato Barucco: "The survey findings show a clear
disconnect between the reasons why men engage in unprotected anal
intercourse and the way prevention initiatives attempt to address risk
behaviors." <br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
4. The following is simply my opinion and should be taken as thus:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
In nearly the nearly thirty years of work in the trenches I have seen it all-- people who are compliant with all of there drugs and still die, people who are complaint with all of their drugs and who somehow pull through (in my circle there are five of us, counting myself, who have lived twenty years or more with AIDS), I have seen lovers thrown out of their homes because one of them died and a family took literally everything, I have seen hospital trays left in the hall because no one wanted to go into the hospital room. On that note I have a very good friend who works at a "Christian" Nursing home and the staff when they found out a specific resident had AIDS and was there to to die, wanted nothing to do with him, let alone for care him-- this was just LAST YEAR!</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Yet President Obama has the gall to say we "are within grasp of an AIDS free generation. Really? People can not afford or get access to basic HIV medications in Africa and "we are within grasp of an AIDS free generation. Really? The government keeps cutting funding to not only research a cure, cut funding to Ryan White Access and cut funding for services for people living with AIDS and yet somehow we are within reach to an AIDS free generation. Really? </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We have the largest influx of gay bareback movies, gay bareback porn studios and a gay society-- which I myself am gay--are largely burned out, overworked, underpaid and in my opinion under appreciated when it comes to what we do for AIDS. </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We have a young gay society under twenty-five who know precious little about the struggle we the generation into our forties and more who were there and saw first hand all of the death, all of the suffering, all of the protests in the streets and I will go out on a limb and say attend an ACT UP funeral of one of its members in front of the White House with the "dead" in a pine coffin laying in the streets and we the mourners demanding change.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We have Californians having the discussion whether condoms should be on all porn shoots gay or straight, laws in California which have been passed and yet we can not move past the idea that somehow by "enforcing" condom use we are stepping on the toes of those wishing "their freedom of expression". Really? But yet somehow we are within grasp of a generation that is AIDS free.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We have a vast number of Americans who still view "victims of HIV/AIDS" as the minorities-- you know the "them" we always speak of--- gays, African Americans, drug users, prostitutes, the poor, the uneducated, the brother on the down low, the Hispanic woman who sleeps around to much, the gay man who who still anonymous gay sex in bath houses or sex clubs.... when in all reality it has been more than this group of "minorities" for a LONG time. Yet somehow we still can not have a honest, frank and open discussion about sex--- yet President Obama believes we are within grasp of an AIDS free generation.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
5. <b> FACT:</b> We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation <u>when funding is cu</u>t. </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation when people refuse to have an open, frank, honest discussion about sex. </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until the church as a whole not only embraces those living with the disease, but gets off their knees praying but actually does something to address the issue, help those in need of help and make a concentrated effort to embrace everyone into their fold.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we do everything in our power to prevent sexual transmission to those who choose to make porn a career.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we make AIDS medication to every single living human being on on the planet, <u>and not only make it available but affordable</u>.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we do everything within our power to help our brothers and sisters, like myself, who are living with AIDS. We need to be able to provide medical coverage that would continue at affordable rates for those wishing to return to work, we need to provide the time off needed by our employees if they need it for medical purposes to recover from an AIDS related illness, we need real equal employment opportunities for those living with AIDS. And finally we need to provide affordable and accessible college opportunities to those living with AIDS-- many who do not realize that there is available funding where we could in all honesty pay very little out of pocket to not only get a degree but get a job that would once and for all get us out of poverty.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Finally, we can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we treat this disease as a human disease and not a minority disease. That the attitude and change that needs to take place is what has happened with Americans embracing Cancer (i.e. The Susan G. Koman Fundraising events), Heart Disease and even Alzheimer's and until all of these things Mr. President happens we will NEVER have an AIDS free generation!</div>
</li>
</ol>
Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-80328758569775272272013-02-03T16:34:00.000-07:002013-02-03T16:34:51.055-07:00I'm so very tired: Bigotry and StupidityYou know I was watching "<i>Betty and Coretta</i>" on <i>Lifetime</i> last night and I was moved to tears and heavy sadness. I am to the point where I have reached the end of my rope. Let me explain...<br />
<br />
It seems here lately that I am having to defend my G-d given right to be an openly gay HIV+ man, and to live my life as one. That the "Christian-right", being whatever domination they are have the right to judge me based on what I happen to with either my dick or my ass and where and how either of those items may or may not be used. If G-d has all that free time to be that concerned with that aspect of my life, I have one thing to say--- Get a life, and preferably not mine.<br />
<br />
According to the Talmud there are <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1359929648_0">613 mitzvot</span>
("commandments") in the Torah/Old Testament.There are 248 positive mitzvot and 365
negative mitzvot given supplemented by seven mitzvot legislated by the
rabbis/religious leaders of antiquity.<br />
<br />
Items that are in the Bible:<br />
<ol>
<li> A glutton should <u>be put to death</u>--OK, all you morbidly obese people, go slit your throats because the Bible tells you too.</li>
<li>A woman's place is in the home under the husband authority at all times no questions asked or required-- so no more working women,no more equal rights for women, no more voting rights for women and certainly no equal pay for women. Let alone having the wife own, inherit, or possess anything of any value.</li>
<li>A disobedient child should be stoned--OK, all you parents with G-d awful brats, you know who you are-- go stone your child to death right now.</li>
<li>All adulterers should be put to death-- OK, anyone who has ever cheated, which BTW includes a former-President, congressmen, senators, mayors, school teachers and religious leaders-- your next to be stoned to death.</li>
<li>Probably most importantly.. and this one is a shocker... The Emancipation Proclamation needs to be done away with because the Bible SUPPORTS slavery!</li>
<li>Some have gone so far as to say that the ENTIRE African race was born out of the curse of Ham! And have used the Bible to support their thinking.</li>
</ol>
Yet, somehow, the most pious of Christians would be simply be appalled by these notions, and "Oh by the way darling, Christ himself did away with all the laws of the Old Testament with the whole idea of "Love thy neighbor as thyself", the Old Testament's is after all out of vogue."<br />
<br />
Really--wow. Love thy neighbor as thyself...... when you say LGBT folks are "not created in G-d's image, that LGBT Folks are in a continual state of sin for being LGBT, you ARE in fact saying that we are less than what G-d created--how self righteous of you to point that out. <br />
<br />
That employers have the right to fire us, landlords have the right to evict us, that the government has the right to deny us the right to marry, to adopt and to even love and in some countries has the right to put us to death... because you feel that this ONE particular Old Testament commandment is more relevant that than other 612 commandments of the Bible.<br />
<br />
This goes into supporting organizations, or business that support anti-gay causes as well. You give them your dollar, your dollar supports their hate, their rhetoric, and their bigotry plain and simple--no questions asked.<br />
<br />
You want to stone me to death then darlin' keep in mind the words of Christ himself "Let him without ANY sin cast the first stone" oh and by the way darlin' here's your ROCK!<br />
<br />
I have just had it and I don't care what the excuses are, if we as American were doing what we are doing to LGBTQ folks to any other race, anywhere on the planet someone would be screaming their bloody head off about it. And I guess I am!<br />
<br />
There are so many issues that we as a human race do not want to take a stand on--- you have someone like Gabby Gifford speaking out on gun violence, gun legislation and yet our elected officials have yet to take a stand and say that we as society<b> do not need </b>a gun that can shoot 300 hundred rounds in less than a minute. Really, you need a gun of this power to go hunting Bambi, protect your home and your life--if this is the case<u> then guess what I want to leave America</u>.<br />
<br />
You have someone like Harry Belafonte speak at the NAACP Awards about gun violence and yet did it fall on deaf ears. It is not just the role of the black church to take stand on this issue but the church as a universal whole needs to say NO MORE!<br />
<br />
You have masses of people who dying of AIDS because the costs or availability, or any other excuse are denied access to those drugs when the focus should be doing what we can to provide those desperately needed drugs to those who need them.<br />
<br />
You have people tortured and killed in countries for whatever reason--sexuality, race or other topics simply because they are who they are, When was the last time we spoke out about the gay man killed in Afghanistan or the genocide that is happening in Darfur--when we said "NEVER AGAIN" in the 1940's?<br />
<br />
Are we that per-occupied with all of our technology, all of our commitments, all of the unnecessary things in life to take a stand for the things that really matter? Is it so important Johnny or Suzie belong to five after school activities, is it life changing if we don't talk on our cell phone constantly, that we forget the dead child killed in the streets yesterday only to talk about he dead child in the street killed today.<br />
<br />
When have we done something for the poor, the underprivileged, the illiterate and the struggling in this country alone, not to mention the entire planet. It has to start somewhere. Mother Teresa started out simply--not being who she ended up being---Martin Luther King Jr.started as a simple country minister, Ghandi began earnestly and determined to change fate.<br />
<br />
You want to be small minded--- do it on your clock, you want to be naive--- do it on your clock, you want to bury your head in the sand--- do it on your own clock. I for one can't take it anymore.<br />
<br />
I feel in the depths of my heart this is the real reason G-d in his divine wisdom left me alive nearly 22 years after being diagnosed with AIDS--- that I am to be the voice of the forgotten, the down-trodden, the struggling, the repressed, the hated and ridiculed and like Coretta Scott King I will strive to eradicate these issues till my dying breath.<br />
<br />
In closing, I want to leave you with the words of Coretta Scott King:<br />
<br />
<i>Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won you earn it and win it in every generation. </i><br />
<br />
<i> The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the
compassionate actions of its members, ... a heart of grace and a soul
generated by love. </i><br />
<br />
<i> I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of
lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial
justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said,
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.</i>"<br />
<br />
Now, my challenge is to bring about change! Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-37320169628988175972012-12-11T09:39:00.000-07:002012-12-11T09:39:38.913-07:00Why do words fail me.... I find myself in an odd circumstance today, I am as a writer at a loss of words to begin to describe to you my readers and followers (if I have any left after months of no posting) what I'm really feeling today.
If you have followed this blog any length of time you all know by now how hard of a time I have with the month of December since the death of my partner Ron Rooy in 2002.
This year marks ten years that he has been gone and today marks the the day of the anniversary we entered hospice care.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Mourning_angel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" id="il_fi" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Mourning_angel.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="217" /></a> From the time we entered hospice care until he died was only ten days. The days ending December 21, 2002 and forever altering who I am at my core. First let me say I would have never have been able to keep him at home, and let him die at home without help. First his daughter Christina who was there for part of it, despite having very small children at the time, Frank D'Angelo, Ken Walrath, Annette Tabar, my mother, Brian Fabo and of course the nurses and staff of Western Reserve Hospice. It is amazing you never forget the small details.<br />
<br />
They say that with time, that the wounds of death become less, well that my friends is a HUGE lie! It does not become less it becomes different and in some ways, and especially for me it is becoming more painful as the years pass.<br />
<br />
This year marks ten years since Ron died and, we were together four months short of ten years---so in reality he has been dead as long as we were together. How do I sit here at my laptop and begin to describe to you what that feels like.<br />
<br />
I am forgetting what he smelled like when he first got of the shower as he stood at the bathroom mirror naked and shaving. I am forgetting the feel of his hand in mine, the touch of and feel of him in bed next to me as we slept. I am forgetting the taste of his lips on mine in the morning when we first woke. I am forgetting what his voice sounded like when he told me he loved me. The pain of this happening in in a word--- brutal!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cincinnatireview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mourning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" id="il_fi" src="http://www.cincinnatireview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mourning.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="300" /></a> But in all honesty I can not ever forget how I felt when I was with him. I can not forget how easy he was to talk to, to spend time with or how easily he could make me laugh. The feel of his hands on me when he made love to me--- those sweet, tender passionate moments sitting in bed on Sunday mornings with the paper and breakfast in bed as we just shared our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our secrets. I can not forget that he more than anyone made me value the life I have.<br />
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To lose someone like that, not just a lover, or a husband but also your best friend does something to you, it dramatically changes you forever and realizing that this last February we would had been together twenty years was very painful. I sit here this morning in tears knowing I would still be with him today if I just had the chance. That even today, ten years later I love him more than ever and I always will. <br />
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But he only lives in memory. Am I as the widower the only one who feels the way I do? Am I the only one who feels that part of my very being is buried with him? I think a lot about him and what he would have to say about my life and what it is today. Would he be proud of me? What advice would he give me?<br />
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I have to admit that I pray to him all the time, my own patron saint--- my own connection to the divine--- I just wish as he said "You will feel me when the wind blows against the back of your neck"--- I need the wind to blow to guide me, lead me and direct my feet to the path I should take. I need to know that he is proud of what I am becoming, and of what I want to do.<br />
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It sad in so many ways that in many regards I have distanced myself from the life I had, and it has been a huge mistake.... but maybe life does go on, we change, we grow, we adapt and I am not longer the thirty-six year-old man whose partner had died. I am now his widower, the keeper of his life, his legacy and I am so very very grateful that i have been blessed with that enormous responsibility.Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8987488074418304726.post-71556068017989677202012-10-21T11:57:00.000-07:002012-10-21T11:57:46.872-07:00talk to me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Charlie Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10038254874718648552noreply@blogger.com0