Creating A Personal Archive Is On My To-Do List

The New York Times a few years ago published an article about the death of the black dance historian Joe Nash whose Harlem apartment was filled with dance memorabilia. The article struck a chord with me. It reminded me that I should get my papers and artifacts together for submission to an archive.

It also reminded me that my late friend, the poet and playwright Assotto Saint, encouraged me and others to start organizing our materials while we were still able to. Unfortunately, I haven't done it yet but it's at the top of my to-do list.

In 1990, I interviewed Mr. Nash via telephone for an article in the New York Amsterdam News about the dance pioneer Pearl Primus. He had been a dancer in her company in the late nineteen-forties. I remember him thanking me for keeping her memory alive. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my article was included in his vast archive.

My Brief Interview With Playwright Assotto Saint

The following is from the transcript of an interview I did in 1989 with the late gay Haitian-American poet/essayist/playwright Assotto Saint (1957-1994).The interview was mainly about his theater piece, New Love Song, which was part two of a trilogy. (Part one was Rising to the Love We Need and part three was Nuclear Lovers.) He and others performed New Love Song in 1989 in a small theater in New York's Greenwich Village. Assotto Saint, whose birth name was Yves Lubin, died in 1994 of complications from AIDS.

Charles Michael Smith: Why did you decide to do multimedia?

Assotto Saint: I hate conventional plots and I usually don't have the patience to deal with that kind of situation. Multimedia*--nonlinear situations, dramatizations--works best for me because it becomes more immediate. Time is not sequential. The present is mixed with the future is mixed with the past. I jump in and out of sequence. That works best for me.

CMS: Are you worried about the audience's ability to follow what's going on?

AS: Actually, no. When theater started, it was also nonsequential. The roots of theater are based on rituals, which mixes the present with the past and the future and also a lot of theater that's being done these days is nonlinear. The whole theater of images that has gained so much popularity during the past ten years is nonlinear, is nonsequential. As black people, we have locked ourselves in so much realistic drama at times.

CMS: What are the sources of your work?

AS: The Yoruba and voodoo religions are very present in the pieces I do. I basically work in rituals. I'm trying to create rituals, black gay rituals in my work. I grew up in Haiti and I was surrounded by voodoo and I also grew up in a strong Catholic family. Therefore I was grounded in the rituals of the Catholic Church and the rituals of the voodoo ceremonies.

I wanted to go back to the roots. To move forward you look back and then you go on. Some people feel looking back is death. But for me, it is necessary at where you came from and you move on.

CMS: How would you describe the segments of this theater piece?

AS: Some are stories, some are monologues, some are essays. Everything I do is complex. (He laughs heartily.)

CMS: Tell me about your self-published books of poems. Why do you self-publish?

AS: As black gay people, we must always search for new ways to establish our own institutions and that way we empower ourselves and become autonomous. It's necessary. We can do it. The women's movement has been an example. They inspired me.

*Multimedia also includes music, film and video clips, sound effects, photo slides, artworks, narration (live and/or recorded).

The Writers Who Influenced Poet Assotto Saint

My friend Assotto Saint (1957-1994), the Haitian-born poet, essayist, performance artist, and founder/publisher of Galiens Press, once told me that the three writers who influenced him the most were poets Pablo Neruda (of Chile) and Anne Sexton and playwright Ntozake Shange, who died last year at age 70.

Note: Happy Valentine's Day!

Correcting An Error Regarding Poet Assotto Saint

Letters to the Editor
The Gay & Lesbian Review
P.O. Box 180300
Boston, MA 02118

December 27, 2004

To the Editor:

I would like to correct an error that appeared in Felice Picano's review of Patrick Moore's Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality (November/December 2004). The late poet Assotto Saint is identified as a Jamaican-American when in fact he was born in Haiti. As a longtime friend of Assotto's, and as one who knew of his pride in his Haitian roots, I could not let the error go unacknowledged.

Sincerely yours,

Charles Michael Smith



Note: This unpublished letter was submitted to GLR via e-mail.

From Haiti To New York: An Interview With Assotto Saint

At the age of 26, Yves Francois Lubin, known in the theatre as Assotto Saint, is a man blessed with many artistic gifts. He writes plays or what he prefers to call "theatre pieces," sculpts, paints, dances, and sings.

It's his belief that "art can transform people," that "art has to be political...that the artist has to be an activist, politician, preacher."

He has written, thus far, three plays. One of them, Risin' to the Love We Need was reviewed by the Amsterdam News critic Lionel Mitchell. "This is a play," wrote Mitchell, "about black gay men and aside from its obvious roughness, it pulls no punches." Another critic, Robert Chesley of the New York Native, had this to say: Lubin "uses language that is frequently very beautiful, and there are some very moving moments in the play."

Lubin came to this country in 1970 with his mother from his native Haiti. He is the product of a well-educated, upper middle class family. While his mother was living in Europe, Lubin was being raised by his grandparents and aunts. "From a very early age,"he says, "I liked boys. I was surrounded by macho men all over and nobody tried to change me.I don't know why. I have so many cousins. About 25, 26 cousins, and we used to play together. I used to always be the bride. I always wanted it. I give my family credit that they let me become who I was. [His family may have been tolerant of his effeminacy, but neighborhood kids were not. They would often call him "massici," the Creole word for "sissy." Even today, Lubin admits to having "effeminate ways."]

Lubin is light-skinned, has a small, well-trimmed mustache, and wears his hair moderately short. Despite his 13 years in America, he still speaks with a heavy Haitian accent.

Charles Michael Smith: You call your plays theatre pieces. What is the difference?
Yves Francois Lubin: They don't necessarily have a beginning, middle or ending. They don't have to have a structure. They're broader.

CMS: Do all of your plays--or theatre pieces--deal with being gay?
YFL: Especially with being black and gay in America in 1983. Certain people  in my family felt I was limiting my talent to work only with gay art.

CMS: Do you write for a specific audience?
YFL: I write for everybody. I deal with black gay issues because my art right now is an answer back. It's a reaction. The world is still fucked up and why not have it coming from a different perspective and see it from there?

CMS: What do you draw on for your characters?
YFL: From my fantasies, from people I've known. Mostly all my characters are composites of friends. My "Miss Thing" [an excerpt from Risin', published in Blackheart 1: Yemonja] was definitely based on a real person, Marcia Johnson, a [black] transvestite who used to be very active in the gay movement.

CMS: What writers influenced you?
YFL: James Baldwin used to be a big influence in my life. Pablo Neruda nurtured me, really nurtured me. Anne Sexton also. I'm one of those confessional [writers], letting it all out there, bleeding, very melodramatic. I wish I could restrain myself. I'm one of those people who are sometimes too open for their own good. Sometimes you have to leave a little bit for the imagination, a little bit for suspense.
One of the things I realize, especially from gay writers, is that we have to stop dealing with cock and cocksucking and deal with other issues that may not be fashionable for gay writers to deal with, like the nuclear issue. People feel that when a black leader like Jesse Jackson speaks, he has to deal only with civil rights. Bullshit. You're a human being, you're living in 1983, in the United States. You're paying taxes. You should involve yourself in all kinds of issues.

CMS: I am told that Haiti is a playground for American gay men. How much difference is there between Haitian gay life and American gay life?
YFL: It's night and day. Most Haitians you see who are gay in Haiti are prostitutes, though there is a Haitian gay life. There are celebrated artists who are gay. But gays have no power in Haiti--although I've been told that there are a few highly positioned gays in this present [Baby Doc's] government. I don't know. Whenever I go to Haiti, I go there to relax and to just lay down from all that's happening in New York.
If you're an American going to Haiti, you will not have problems. But if you're gay [and Haitian] in Haiti, you will have problems. American money is being sold in Haiti. Being an American is being a god; it means money. You can do whatever you want, whether you're gay or not. But if you're gay and Haitian, that's different: there's homophobia you have to deal with. You're a pariah in that society.




This article is an excerpt from an interview that was published in the New York Native in 1984. The interview took place in his apartment in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

Fighting AIDS Via Music

Seventy-five or so marchers in the Harlem contingent of the July 14 [1992] United for AIDS Action march left their gathering site outside the State Office Building and headed down Seventh Avenue in the broiling morning sun toward the Times Square rally where they would join thousands of others to become, in the words of the reggae-beat song, "Feeding the Flame," "the ones who take to the streets" to demand a radical change in governmental policies toward the AIDS crisis. As they marched under police escort through Harlem, one of the people of color communities hardest hit  by the epidemic, they carried placards and chanted slogans like "We say fight back, they say get back!"

One of the marchers, playwright/director Reginald T. Jackson of the Rainbow Repertory Theatre in Manhattan, saw the march as something very personal, having three brothers in different stages of HIV/AIDS. His dream is to see a cure for the disease so "we can move on to another issue, like racism."

The dream of seeing a cure also belongs to Willie Sordillo, the executive producer of the recording Feeding the Flame: Songs by Men to End AIDS on Chicago's Flying Fish Records. (Flying Fish is the label responsible for bringing us the African-American female a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, one the groups that inspired the gay doo-wop quintet the Flirtations, who appear on the recording.)

Sordillo's dream is why the money generated by Feeding the Flame, whose title track is by Sordillo, will be donated to those organizations across the country that provide services to those with HIV/AIDS.

The 16 songs, by as many artists, who include folk singers Josh White, Jr. and Pete Seeger, the techno-pop duo Xotica, and guitarists peter Alsop and Ry Cooder, represent a variety of musical styles (reggae, doo-wop, folk, etc.) and themes, both serious and comic.

Among my favorites on the album are the hauntingly beautiful "All the Time in the World" by Fred Small and Alsop and Cooder's bouncy, down-home-flavored "Gotta Lotta Livin' to Do."

The only hard-rock tune is Xotica's "Forever Gay," which is not for those with sensitive ears. Co-written by the well-known Haitian-born poet Assotto Saint, "Forever Gay," if played at maximum volume, could conceivably crack windowpanes and knock lampshades askew. The song has a defiant, "here to dare" attitude.

Feeding the Flame is an important contribution to the effort toward educating and sensitizing the public about AIDS. A copy of it (in CD or cassette form) should be in everybody's music collection.

This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (September 5, 1992).

Assotto Saint, The Impossible Black Homosexual

My favorite Assotto Saint story is the one where he boldly marches up to the pulpit at poet Donald Woods's funeral and utters what others in the church, including his two lovers, were afraid to admit in their eulogies of him: that Donald was a black gay man. This story has been retold in print by writers James Turcotte and Thomas Glave.

Assotto Saint, also a poet and publisher, called himself an "impossible black homosexual." That night he certainly was. Kudos to him for such a brave act.

"Libido Lit 101": Black Writers Respond To AIDS

"We need to deal with our sexuality, our erotica," says Donald Woods, a black gay poet. "Especially now, because of this [health] crisis."

From that belief sprang "Libido Lit 101," sponsored by Other Countries, a new black gay literary journal scheduled for publication April 15 [1988]. "Libido Lit 101" will take place at the popular discotheque Tracks (531 West 19th Street, at the corner of 11th Avenue in Manhattan) on April 22. This show is what black lesbian poet Audre Lorde calls in her essay "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," a "celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors." To Lorde, "the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing."

The participants, some of the most talented and notable black gay artists, hope to put us (again in Lorde's words) "in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves" through poetry, prose, and dance. Scheduled to appear are D.C. poet/urban griot Essex Hemphill, whose work has been published, among other places, in the [New York] Native; award-winning science fiction writer Samuel Delany; 21-year-old dancer/choreographer Ron Brown, and poet Assotto Saint. The host of the show will be Joe Simmons, star of the all-black gay erotic video Made in the Shade.

"Libido Lit" 's director, Dennis Green, is aware of the AIDS "paranoia" that has gripped the nation. He feels that "a program that's all about sex, all about erotica and pleasure" is "a very nice thing to have" so long as it's done "in good taste" with "a sense of grace and humor."

"You can be provocative," says Green, "without being obvious. The real fun is suggesting, not stating; saying just enough to let the audience's imagination and sensibility just take off."

This article was originally published in the New York Native (April 25, 1988).

Assotto Saint's Videotape Erasure

Other than poet Assotto Saint and his life partner Jan Holmgren, I am probably the only person to have viewed a videotape of our mutual friend Dave Frechette's final moments as he lay in a hospital bed.

Dave, a very gifted writer and journalist, died of AIDS-related complications at New York's Roosevelt Hospital in 1991.

As he lay dying, Assotto and Jan recorded him up to the point when he took his last breaths. At the moment of death, Assotto is seen trying to close Dave's eyes. But they wouldn't stay closed.

Assotto, shortly after showing me the tape in his Chelsea apartment, accidentally erased it. An avid fan of the soap opera, All My Children, he recorded an episode of the show on the tape containing the video of Dave's death. "Can you imagine," he lamented to me, "erasing the tape for a soap opera?" Apparently, he did not label the cassette or punch out the little plastic tabs at both ends of the cassette to prevent such a catastrophe. Unfortunately, that tape is now forever lost to gay history. ( There was a recording of Dave's funeral service, which I also viewed at Assotto's home, but I don' t remember if it was on the same cassette.)

A Missed Opportunity

Some black gay history significa: I was one of three people who poet/publisher Assotto Saint (aka Yves Lubin) considered leaving Galiens Press to. The other two were writers Thom Bean (San Francisco) and Craig Reynolds (D.C. or Maryland), both now deceased.

At the time (the mid 1990s) , I couldn't see how I could be both a writer and a publisher. It wasn't until years later, after reading a biography of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of the Beat Generation writers, and a memoir by novelist/publisher Felice Picano called Art and Sex in Greenwich Village, that I realized, much too late, that it was doable.

He told me that he was going to leave some money to whomever he left the press to with one proviso: the press could only be used to publish the work of other writers. When none of us showed any enthusiasm for such an undertaking, Assotto decided that Galiens Press would die with him. (Assotto had full-blown AIDS.)

I deeply regret not taking Assotto up on his offer. It would have been a marvelous opportunity for me to publish up -and -coming writers as well as keeping Galiens Press alive.

Book Review: "Spells Of A Voodoo Doll"

Spells of a Voodoo Doll by Assotto Saint (Masquerade/Richard Kasak Books, 405 pages)

The late Assotto Saint (1957-1994) did not mince words or suffer fools gladly. His motto, if he were given the opportunity to choose one, would have been: "My duty is to tell the truth as I see it." If you didn't like what he saw as the truth, and many didn't, that was your problem. He was a rebel with a cause who fearlessly marched to the pulpit during a friend's funeral "to avenge your censored queer legacy" and "to stand up...to a pompous minister who under his breath/damned us for mass-invading his holy territory." For Saint it was important that black gay men "become whistleblowers" and "become powerful enough to stand tall and not fall, thrive and not just survive."

That attitude permeates Spells of a Voodoo Doll, a mostly autobiographical collection of his poems, essays, fiction, song lyrics, and plays that explores his life as a black gay man "living with/dying of AIDS." It is easy to see why those who flinched at his whistleblowing were glad to learn he had Kaposi's sarcoma lesions in his mouth so that "the bitch will have to shut up." But they forgot one thing--Saint was still able to wield a mighty pen.

And that pen, especially in the poetry sections, vividly details a short but brilliant and productive life. In these sections Saint reveals that he was born out of wedlock in Haiti, that he was brought up by an aunt and uncle when his mother, with whom he was later reunited, moved to Switzerland, that he was "seven when I realized my attraction to men," that he didn't "believe/in the foolishness/of spiritual/afterlife," and that he and his Swedish lover Jan (also deceased) "loved the New York Knicks basketball team, our terrace in spring & summer, soap operas, The Today Show, & our friends. We were committed & devoted to each other."

Many of the poems express his deep love for Jan before, during, and after Jan's illness from AIDS. To those who believe gay men are incapable of having long-term relationships, they have only to open Spells of a Voodoo Doll to have that belief refuted again and again.

The best and most memorable parts of the book are the poetry and essay sections. The essays "Haiti: A Memory Journal," "Why Winnie Mandela Should Go to Jail," and "A Match with Ashe" show that Saint was a gifted essayist and thinker. Although the Mandela essay digresses a bit toward the end, it is a strong indictment against homophobia and violence.

All of the short fiction are really sections of the three plays that appear at the back of the book and are more interesting than the plays, all multi-media pieces, as a whole.

Michele Karlsberg's brief introduction is a resume of Saint's career and tells the reader nothing about how she came to know him or anything about their relationship. Plus, she mistakenly identifies the Other Countries writing collective as "the start of a renaissance in black gay writing" when in fact it was the Blackheart Collective. Saint, in his essay "Why I Write," correctly calls Blackheart's founder, Isaac Jackson, "a groundbreaker in openly gay black publishing."

Overall, Spells of a Voodoo Doll is an important tribute to the legacy of a black gay man who called himself Assotto Saint, and thought of himself as the Impossible Black Homosexual because he was "not afraid/to stand my ground."

Tribute To A Friend

After I learned of Assotto Saint's death, I played "Forever Gay," the song he and his life partner Jan wrote and performed, on my cassette player. It was my private tribute to a cherished friend's short but productive life.

The most outstanding thing about Assotto (1957-1994) was his lack of selfishness. He was always willing to share information and give of himself. When our mutual friend, writer David Frechette, was hospitalized with AIDS, it was Assotto who looked after Dave's apartment and took care of his personal business.

I could always count on Assotto to send me a Christmas or birthday card, direct some editorial work my way, or call me to find out how I was doing.

Unlike some black men with white lovers, Asssotto did not abandon the black gay community. His publication of two black gay poetry anthologies attests to that. He also did not forget his African and Haitian roots. He was able to do this because he was comfortable with himself as a black gay man and proud of his heritage.

As a poet, playwright, musician, painter, editor, publisher, and activist, Assotto leaves a rich, edifying legacy. He will not be forgotten.

Three New York Musicians Record With Gay San Francisco Poet

"Jeff Lilly's poetry dances through music and delivers a lyrical punch that should be heard and acknowledged out there in the world of words and sound."--Neeli Cherkovski, poet and author of Ferlinghetti: A Biography.

Jeffrey Lilly is a San Francisco-based poet who has recorded two poetry with music CDs, "The Butterfly Flies," his most recent, and "Promised Land Poems." "A number of poems of my recordings," says Lilly, an openly gay man, "are an expression of eros or a defense of eros." Especially same-gender eros, which Lilly celebrates without fear or shame or equivocation and with artistic beauty. In "Come Christmas Day's Two to Oneing Morn" (from "The Butterfly Flies") the poem is set to music that quotes from the carol, "Noel," and explores a sexual relationship in the early morning hours of Christmas. Lilly explains the origin of the poem this way: "It originally began after the Christmas morning episode with a man I was in love with. We had known each other for some time. I finished it after a relationship with a second lover. There was also the memory of a two-day fling with a German tourist. This was before the days of AIDS. I was writing about the joy of safe sex. The first two encounters weren't brief encounters, but the original idea of flexibility and alternation came out of that early encounter with a German tourist." "African Beauty," another gay-oriented poem on "Butterfly," is a tribute to a male lover, " a man with whom I lived for some time."

"The Butterfly Flies" features three New York musicians: Jonathan Comisar (piano), a faculty member at Hebrew Union College, who studied under the Pulitzer-Prize winning composer David Del Tredici, also composes Jewish liturgical music; Mike Cohen (clarinet and flute), who has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and other venues; and Ivan Borenboim (clarinet), and artist-in-residence at Central Synagogue and a performer throughout the United States, Argentina, and Europe. Hans Christian, the German-born composer on "Promised Land Poems," is also a record producer and studio engineer.

Over the years, Lilly, a convert to Judaism in 1992, has read his poetry at his GLBT synagogue, Sha'ar Zahav, as well as other venues in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Lilly believes his "reading style is more like poetic song that is well matched with the music which amplifies my words." He has been "told I have a good performance voice that goes well
with music." In addition, he continues, "I have had the good fortune of having very talented composers [Jonathan Comisar and Hans Christian] to work with."

Among the writers Lilly has been influenced by are Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg whose pairing of poetry and music was"one essential part of the Beat movement."
A few of the poems on both CDs mix words from different languages. Lilly, who earned a master's degree in Russian language and literature and another one in comparative literature, sees this as his way of "conveying a musical sound." He "draws on my studies of Russian, French, and Italian, as well as other foreign words I've encountered in the multicultural world of San Francisco."

Lilly is co-editor of Art Mugs the Reaper, a project he describes as "an artistic quilt." It celebrates the work and lives of gay men such as photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and poet-playwright Assotto Saint, who have died from AIDS. He is also at work on an as-yet-unnamed novel about a Russian emigre writer. The book is an outgrowth of his social service work among Russian emigres in San Francisco.

For further information about the CDs, you can contact Jeffrey Lilly at JL@jeffreylillypresents.com.

When Black Gay Arts Thrived

Much has been written and said about the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. However, very little has been written about another black arts movement that occurred among black gays and lesbians mainly here in New York. As you may know, the '80s was a frightening time because of the burgeoning AIDS crisis. But it was also a very creative period for black gays and lesbians in all the arts: fiction, the theatre, photography, music, dance, film, and art.
Out of this period came such notables as Assotto Saint, Melvin Dixon, Marlon Riggs, Joseph Beam, Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill to name a few.
Unfortunately, most of the male individuals are now dead, victims of the AIDS epidemic. They left behind, however, a body of work that revealed a promising talent that was cut short.
Also, at that time numerous literary journals began to emerge: Other Countries Journal, Habari Daftari, BLK, Pyramid Periodical, In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology, etc.
From 1983 to 1988, I wrote for the now-defunct weekly newspaper, the New York Native. Most of the articles I contributed focused on the black gay and lesbian community. So I got the opportunity to interview and write about many of the participants of this movement. A few of them like Assotto Saint became friends. So whenever I see them mentioned in an article or book, my mind goes back to when I spoke to them on the phone or attended one of their readings or ate dinner with them. For me they will always be more than just a name on a printed page.
Just as Edmund White and Felice Picano have kept the memory of the members of the Violet Quill writing group alive, so too should the names and the work of the aforementioned writers be memorialized.
Eventually someone will write a memoir or critique of the black gay arts movement. I hope I will be able to share my thoughts and memories as well as documentary material with that scholar.