Jericho first met Jablesse where all gay men meet–behind the parish church, in the shadows cast by thorned silk-cotton trees, until the shadows are layered, and thickest. When he arrived, Jablesse was drowning in tall grass, only his shoulders and head were visible above the green–he turned to stare, not in the once-up-and-down, which saw and […]
la independencia
(de puerto rico)
entré en un gran terror redondo, tierno y final.
era todos los que amé y se me fueron.
era mi soledad y su repetición.
era la crueldad potente a media asta.
entré a una torre horizontal […]
Recalling his first encounter with Martinican poet Aimé Césaire’s writing in 1941, André Breton observed that “what was said there was what had to be said,” thus placing under the sign of necessity the audacity and expressive freedom he perceived in that work. Breton quoted Césaire’s declaration, “We belong to […]
You see, when you are talking, you always have to know when to stop.
-Jacques Lacan, “My Teaching, Its Nature and Its Ends”
But someone else/ b exactly/ who you are/ new
-Amiri Baraka […]
in the morning too late too soon moon on the western horizon opal slipped over night pearl, mollusk, sunstone tear in a sea of sky after a day of last minute cooking shows visiting a dear older friend receiving but not right now says the nurse and “maybe he won’t […]
“one new york critic had accused me of being too self-conscious of being a writer / … yes / being an afro-american writer is something to be self-conscious abt” — Ntozake Shange, “my pen is a machete” I don’t remember when I first encountered Ntozake Shange’s work because it was […]
The sea rivets memory Recalling boat names, ship titles Manifests- handwritten or typed. Holds forgetting: stowaways tossed Suicides unknown. Refugees’ fabrics, heirlooms, jewels removed. ————————————– This human cargo Tongues in search of listening ears— The sea is here, the sea is there, the sea Flicks waves against a high cliff’s […]
Betty Jean Owens, an African American woman who was raped by four white men—Patrick Gene Scarborough, David Erwin Beagles, Ollie Odell Stoutamire, and William Ted Collinsworth– in Tallahassee, Fl; May, 1959. The trial was a landmark case, covered at the time by the BBC and international news outlets. This was […]
“A November’s Tale: Assaults on the Franchise” lends the title and substance to Convergence 3, our spring/summer double-issue, which closes out our inaugural year. We aim here to turn the spotlight on the ballot–supposedly democracy’s proudest achievement and one of the central linchpins of Republican governance. The extent to which […]
It is safe to say that we have rounded a bend. And by “we” I have in mind, simultaneously, that enduring plea and effort contained in something dubbed a nation, a country, or, not so lately now, a republic; and, a specific and newly energized segment of U.S. civilization. Ten […]
Apocalypse Now and ThenJuly 1, 2020
“For all the tea in China, all the oil in Texas”July 1, 2020
Horseman No. 5July 1, 2020
Dawn of Darkness 1July 1, 2020