conjures a “magic” Johnson who achieves at a sin-
gular level, but the narrator is also aware that the
famous basketball player’s achievements have been
momentarily overshadowed by his announcement
that he is HIV positive and his retirement from the
NBA. The narrator’s voice seems to echo Troupe’s
own experience, which led him to leave the game
he loved and mastered:
in victory, we suddenly sense your glorious
uplift
your urgent need to be champion
& so we cheer with you, rejoice with you
quicksilver moment of fame
so put the ball on the floor again, “magic”Refusing to let “magic” be victimized by his cir-
cumstances and recognizing Johnson’s new “ur-
gent need to be champion”—to champion over
HIV, the narrator invokes a ritualistic incantation
designed to bring “magic” Johnson out of retire-
ment: “... deal the roundball like the juju man that
you am / like the sho-nuff shaman that you am,
/ ‘magic.’ ” While the incantation restores “magic”
with each repetition, the “you am” declares his
agency, subjectivity, and being. In the end the au-
dience finds reassurance of infinite possibilities in
their own lives and can rejoice with the athlete.
Troupe has taught at the University of Cali-
fornia at Los Angeles, University of Southern
California, Ohio University, Richmond College,
University of California Berkeley, California State
at Sacramento, University of Ghana at Legon,
College of Staten Island, the City University of
New York, and the University of California at San
Diego. His publications include Snake-Back Solos:
Selected Poems, 1969–1977 (I. Reed Books, 1978),
Weather Reports: New and Selected Poems (Writ-
ers and Readers, 1991), Avalanche: Poems (Cof-
fee House Press, 1996), Choruses: Poems (Coffee
House Press, 1999), Transcircularities: New and Se-
lected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2002), Miles and
Me (2000), and Take It to the Hoop, Magic Johnson
(with Shane W. Evans, illustrator, Hyperion Press,
2000). Among his honors, he was California’s first
poet laureate, he won two American Book Awards,
and he is the two-time winner of the Heavyweight
Championship of Poetry at the World Poetry Bout
in Taos, New Mexico.
Troupe’s work as poet, biographer, critic, com-
munity activist, teacher, and sometimes shaman
has continued the Black Arts Movement into the
21st century by giving mainstream America a space
for dialogue with the black experience. Through
a tireless effort, his message reaches his audience
where they are, whether in prison, a jazz club, or
the academy. Keeping true to the shaman persona
he has developed, Troupe is continually changing,
changing his poetry, finding new voices to publish,
and creating imaginative and relevant ways to in-
fluence a literary scene that is inspired by his past
work and looks forward to his latest.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pettis, Joyce Owens. African American Poets: Lives,
Works, and Sources. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 2002.
Erik B. LudwigTruth, Sojourner (1797?–1883)
Born a slave between 1797 and 1800 in Hurley, Ul-
ster County, New York, Sojourner Truth became
an iconic figure of strength and courage for her
relentless work in abolition, feminism, and activ-
ism. Named Isabella, Truth was the second young-
est of 12 or 13 children of James and Elizabeth,
all owned by Johannes Hardenbergh, Jr., a Dutch
planter and heir to the Hardenbergh patent, and
then to his brother Charles. Charles died when
Truth was “near nine years old,” and Truth and her
family were sent to auction and sold. Within four
years, she was sold twice more, eventually becom-
ing the slave of John Dumont in New Paltz, New
York. After Dumont reneged on his promise to free
her, Truth “walked to freedom” in the fall of 1826
with her youngest infant child.
Following her self-emancipation, Truth ad-
opted the last name van Wagenen, in recognition
of the family who provided her with sanctuary
and purchased her from Dumont and made herTruth, Sojourner 509