“Safe Harbour,” a poem by David Frechette, is a
metaphor for the rescue of a lover’s arms against
the “tidal wave of woes” the black homosexual
would face outside his lover’s embrace. “Names
and Sorrows,” a poem by D. Rubin Green, chron-
icles the myriad discrepancies and problems of
black-on-white gay love. All three poems are em-
blematic of the carving out of a new community.
Many black gay men are estranged from their fam-
ilies. The conciliatory tone of Charles’s “Comfort”
is tempting to a gay black male adrift from a com-
munity he had always known. Frechette’s poem
too draws a cold, unforgiving heterosexual world,
while Green goes deeper into blackness, address-
ing ostracism by chanting some of the taboos a
black man who loves a white man must turn over
in his mind.
The exterior world’s impression of the black
male preys on the identity of the black homosex-
ual. “Couch Poem” by Donald Woods juxtaposes
the complex mask a professional gay man wears
throughout his day, against his true personal
yearnings, sense of place, and comforts (64–67).
“Hey, Brother, What’s Hap’nin?,” a short story by
Cary Alan Johnson, further challenges the figura-
tive roles gay black men must play. By reestablish-
ing dominant and effeminate manners, Johnson
throws all the white definitions away and estab-
lishes the boy next door as the ideal. The boy next
store is both something to be and someone to pine
after. “Jailbait,” a poem by Don Charles, denies the
boy next store the ability to know what his needs
are and what he could be representing to the older,
wiser black homosexual.
“Hold Tight Gently,” Section III, broadens the
black homosexual community to include friends
and caregivers. “It Happened to Me,” a nonfiction
account by Roger V. Pamplin, Jr., shows the ratio-
nale and behavior that led Pamplin to be tested for
HIV and learn he is positive. Part of the rationale
seems to be a lack of communication filtering over
from the gay white community. Pamplin survives
PCP pneumonia and, at the time of his writing this
piece, owes his defeat of death to the support of
friends and his faith in God. He initially goes from
being angry with God to having an even greater
sense of purpose. Through Pamplin’s piece, oth-
ers can learn to be safe and the black gay commu-
nity can become strengthened. “The Scarlet Letter,
Revisited: A Very Different AIDS Story,” by Walter
Rico Burrell, follows a diary account of the author’s
AIDS-related illnesses. Caught between hostile,
fearful medical and pharmaceutical communities
and a tolerant and loving community of a doc-
tor and one friend, Burrell undergoes the trials of
AZT. Through the delirium of the drug, he tells his
family history, the dichotomy of his father’s sense
of place in the world (black and economically suc-
cessful was rare), and the social constrictions of
being black. The physical and emotional closeness
he shares with his father is something he wishes
to pass on to his own children, especially to his
son. Burrell openly discloses his ex-wife’s hatred
for him and his lifestyle and his son’s rejection of
him, and he reconciles that he may just “leave this
life still longing for love” given the limited though
warm community in which he resides (135). “Re-
membrance,” a prose piece by Kenneth McCreary,
chronicles the love, dedication, and profound
aloneness that the caregiver experiences following
the loss of a lover or friend to AIDS. The sadness
is found in the fact that in the weeks following the
death, perhaps even in years to come, rediscovered
items belonging to the deceased will echo a life left
to be remembered.
“The Absence of Fear,” section IV, begins with
Adrian Stanford’s famous “Psalm for the Ghetto.”
Stanford’s emotive call for coalition within the
black culture for the survival of the black intel-
lect transitions into the essay “True Confessions:
A Discourse on Images of Black Male Sexual-
ity.” Here, Isaac Julien and Kobena Mercer object
to laws against pornography for their overriding
white representation and its lack of libertarian ar-
guments. Julien and Mercer further discuss “black
male gender roles” and “a multiplicity of identi-
ties” to contribute to the coalition for a true black
intellectual and sexual identity.
Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam look to the
contributions of black literary icons LANGSTON
HUGHES and JAMES BALDWIN and to contemporary
artists’ depictions of their works in search of a
cornerstone to define the black homosexual intel-
lect. Roy Simmons discusses some of the social,Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men 77