ju st o u t ▼ d o eem b o r 1, I M S ▼ 2 0
TRIBUTE
Honoring a tenacious artist
The death of Essex Hemphill
is a blow to the literary community
by Kristine Chatwood
he literary world suffered a major
loss last month with the death of poet
Essex Hemphill. Hemphill died Nov.
4, in Philadelphia, of AIDS-related
complications. He was 38.
Bom in Chicago and raised in Washington,
D.C., Hemphill was 14 years old when
he began writing. ‘Tablets, journals,
those became my confidants,” he told
columnist Deb Price in a recent inter
view.
At the same time that he discovered
his gift for writing, Hemphill also dis
covered his sexuality. His life became
the story of the coming together of these
two selves— the artist and the black gay
man. Hemphill told Deb Price: “I started
writing about and addressing my homo
sexuality because it wasn’t there in the
black text. And I needed something to
be there to validate that my experience
was real for me.”
Hemphi 11 founded the Nethula Jour
nal o f Contemporary Literature i n 1978,
and ran the magazine for several years.
In the early ’80s he formed Cinqud, a
poetry-performance group that at vari
ous times included Way son Jones, Larry
Duckette and Chi Hughes. The Coffee
house, a Washington, D.C., gathering
spot for black gay artists, provided him
with a refuge from the racism of the
District and a place to nurture his artis
tic growth.
When his friend author-activist Jo
seph Beam died of AIDS-related com
plications in 1988 while working on the
anthology Brother to Brother: New
Writings by Black Gay Men, Hemphill
took over the task of editing the manu
script. The book, published in 1991,
won Hemphill the Lambda Award for
editing.
In 1992, Penguin published Cer
emonies. For this collection of poems,
prose and expository writing on the
black gay experience and urban life in
the United States, he was awarded the
National Library Association’s New Authors in
Poetry Award.
He self-published the books Diamonds in the
T
Kitty (1982), Plums (1983), Earth Life (1985),
and Conditions (1986). His work has also ap
peared in Black Scholar, Essence Magazine,
Painted Bride Quarterly, Gargoyle, OUTWEEK,
and other publications. His poems are featured in
two of Marlon Riggs’ films, Tongues Untied and
ships, including a PEW Charitable Trust Fellow
ship in the Arts. In 1993, he was a visiting scholar
at the J. Paul Getty Center for the History of Art
and Humanities.
Hemphill was uncompromising in his work.
In a Washington Blade story, his friend Wayson
said, Hemphill’s artistic achievements more than
justify his tenacity.
Hemphill’s impact on black gay men in gen
eral and black gay writers in particular is pro
found. “If it hadn’t been for him and for writers
such as Stephen Corvin and Joe Beam, who were
published and saw success in the mid-
1980s, I don’t know if 1 would have
had the courage to write a story about
black gay men,” author E. Lynn Harris
told the Blade. “He was speaking for a
segment of the population that hadn’t
been heard.”
Harris added, “We’ve lost another
great African American gay writer who
contributed a lot but could have con
tributed more, if there had not been
this disease and [there had been] more
time.”
In the same Blade story, Larry
Duckette said, “ He charged and in
spired so many people—especially
black gay Americans— into appreci
ating and loving themselves. He had
such a talent and was so eloquent in his
instructions to us. I think he will al
ways be rem em bered. All o f us
changed because of his message.”
At the time of his death, Hemphill
was working on three projects. The
first, Standing in the Gap, is a novel
about the mother of a gay man with
A IDS, who challenges a preacher ’ s con
demnation of her son. Bedside Com
panions is a collection of short stories
by black gay men. The third project is
The Evidence o f Being, narratives of
older black gay men.
Hemphi II is survived by his friends;
his mother, MantaleneClark Hemphill
“/ started^uniting about and addressing my homosexuality because it wasn 7
of Clinton, Md.; his father, Warren A.
there in the black text. And I needed something to he there to validate that
Hemphill Sr. of Ft. Washington, Md.;
three
sisters,Ty wan Hemphill and Lois
my experience was real for me."
Holmes, both of Washington, D.C.,
and
S andra
L ittlejo h n
of
— Hssex Hemphill
Lawrenceville, Ga.; and one brother,
Warren A. Hemphill Jr. of High Point,
N.C.
Jones said that Hemphill constantly pushed for
Funeral services were held Nov. 9 at Full
Black Is, Black A in ’t, and in the documentary
“clarity and honesty of expression in his work.”
Gospel AME Zion Church in Temple Hills, Md.
Looking fo r Langston.
Though some found him to be demanding, Jones
Hemphill received several writing fellow-