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| The first time I met Thomas Glave was during the inaugural Fire and Ink Conference in Chicago around six years ago. Since then, this writer has followed the scholar's career and his published works with great interest and delight. |
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In record time, Dr. Glave has become known for his erudite expressions concerning the intersection of race and sexuality. In one word, Glave is - brilliant.
While born in the United States in the Bronx, Glave comes from Jamaican parents and spent a considerable amount of his formative years on the tiny island. From his Rasta-like appearance to his sing-song patterns of speech, it is clear that Jamaica - its history and its people - remain imbedded in his spirit.
But being a same gender loving man who loves the home of his ancestors has not been easy, given the negative attitudes and sometimes deadly and aggressive actions aimed at homosexuals.
Not to be deterred, Glave helped found the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-Flag) while in Jamaica to pursue post graduate education opportunities and continues to speak justice to a situation of injustice.
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His skill for writing has been acknowledged with numerous awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction (2005) for his collection of essays, Words to Our Now: Imagination and Descent for which he also garnered the O. Henry Prize, becoming only the second gay African-American writer, after James Baldwin, to win the award.
We caught up with our friend and colleague recently in Atlanta where he was on a national book tour promoting his latest project, a collection of challenging and insightful short stories entitled, The Torturer's Wife (City Lights Publishing, 2008).
"Each of the stories is stylistically distinct but each has its own particular issues and questions that I want to focus on and present to the reader," Glave said. "In the first story in the book, "Between," I wanted to explore what it would be like for two men from different races to experience a sexual relationship. |
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| Class of 2009: Award-winning author Thomas Glave (seated below) contemplates with fellow author Vestal McIntyre, who with other leaders from the LGBT community like Adam Lambert, Cyndi Lauper, Wanda Sykes and Lee Daniels, were selected as the "Top 100" most inspiring and outstanding men and women of the year by OUT Magazine. |
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| Are the taste, the look and the smell quite different and does it even matter? And what kinds of thoughts does one have while making love?" [For our old school readers, such reflections are the kind that would make former talk show host Arsenio Hall say, "Hmmm."]
Glave next read excerpts from "Out There," which is an account of an exorcism held in a small Jamaican village where the natives burn down the home of an admitted homosexual while he is still inside and refuse to allow him to exit, unless he wishes to accept mutilation and death at the hands of machete-wielding men.
"The story isn't based on an historical account but it well could be," he added. "I was interested in how easy it is for some to participate in such atrocities when we do not know the person. In such cases our fellow humans view their victims not as people but as a thing - an object. And somehow that make it easier.
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"In the second part of the story I deal with one of the characters, Solomon, and purposely remove all racial markers like Toni Morrison does in Paradise. I was interested in the assumptions that we make about people once we know their race and what more, if anything, is really known about someone when we are told that they are a "black woman" as opposed to just a "woman."
"Analyzing race in America is very different from how it impacts people in Jamaica. In Jamaica, the racial markers have more to do with the color of one's skin - the shades of brown. So, those who are brown, red or black are viewed differently and have different degrees of access - that is to say, skin color makes a difference vis-à-vis social class.
One is considered in a different class based on their color and that is part of our lasting legacy of being a colonized nation."
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| Glave points out that language is a major focus in his writing and asserts that depending on where is raised, they tend to understand culture and speak to it in very different ways. Even the way we communicate, according to Glave, will undoubtedly change, based on our place of origin.
"I chose to use multiple voices in "Out There" and sought to provide it with its own energy and propulsion," he said. "I wanted to establish the tableau so that it was clear that the story was not written for a North American audience. I wanted the reader to be able to see what it was like to live in that town and to understand that the stakes were different for the main characters because while both gay, only one of the characters is from Jamaica. This story was difficult for me to write because I felt imprisoned by language and its constraints. I wanted to see if I could free language and give it [language] its own expansiveness. "
Glave says that his stories are pieces of fiction and almost never, except on one occasion, based on real people. Still, his characters speak to him and - he listens.
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"I suppose my characters speak to me but then I guess that should be expected since I live with them for quite a long time," he said. "When Solomon speaks [in "Out There"] his extended patois is a language that is not standardized in Jamaican writing.
You could say that I was experimenting with his words and attempting to show it on the page grammatically and make it read clearly to a Jamaican audience.
"The issues that Jamaicans face are not what African Americans experience here in the United States. Understand, Jamaica is a black country but the degrees of black and brown define one's social class and the opportunities that are either present or denied because of their skin color.
African Americans seem to have that same tension [recall American literature about house slaves versus field slaves where the lighter-skinned slaves were given the privileged position of being indoors] but don't tend to feel it as much as we do in Jamaica. In Jamaica it is more desirable to be "brown" not "black."
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| "The color is significant and when I was a child I didn't understand that but I attempt to now confront it and expose it in my writing. In my uncle's house back in Jamaica, the house staff were all black [dark-skinned] and we called them by their first name.
But for those who were brown [lighter] we were instructed to call them by their title - mister, misses. Even my relatives who were darker were not accepted like I was. And as for my friends, I was not allowed to have too many "black" friends. It's still a complicated situation."
Glave continues to push the button and challenge notions of conformity in all of his work. He is currently working on a piece of fiction that examines life for the middle class and how they live within the confines of their black-brown obsessions.
He says that besides language, one of his primary concerns is the lasting impact of slavery and colonization on the people of Jamaica.
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"I was working on a Fulbright Fellowship in Jamaica and was concentrating on issues of social justice when I helped found J-Flag," he said. "I have always been interested in the LGBTQ life of Jamaicans and how our country's history and colonization have shaped how we view those who are not part of the heterosexual world. Why are the men there so vehemently opposed to homosexuality?
I think it is because we have not dealt with our bodies - the many women and men who were raped by their colonizers. The result it that Jamaicans are both very sensual while at the same time repressed - almost puritanical. We live in a world with a lot of contradictions because of our former English rulers. The strange thing is that you find rampant expressions of homosexuality in the most unexpected places."
To read the work of Thomas Glave is to experience his penchant for listening which manifests itself in how he tells a story. And it is clear that each word is carefully chosen before he puts it down on paper.
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"I remain inspired by the rich and expressive language of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison but I also grew up around a lot of story tellers," he said. "I was fascinated by the phrases they used and how grown people would sometimes say such outrageous things while acting like I was not within listening distance. Then they would remind me not to say what they had said - so I tried to be quiet and just listen.
"One of the best places to observe language for me was always in church. You hear so many fascinating conversations, especially after church is over. All of those rich experiences are added into the stories and essays that I write.
Even the music is included in the language and the sounds that I seek to recreate. Sometimes just a simple "uh hum," can mean so many different things.
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That's the amazing thing about our people in the Diaspora. Sometimes what we say sounds similar but it means very different things. The challenge I have set for myself is to somehow convey the particular meaning of these phrases and words on the page which maintaining the sound."
If you are looking for more from Thomas Glave, this writer recommends his edited anthology of gay and lesbian writing from the Caribbean - a collection that has been described as an "unprecedented literary conversation" on LGBT experiences throughout the Caribbean and its "far-flung Diaspora."
With authors representing 37 countries, some who still live in the Caribbean with others having moved to Europe, Canada or the United States, the pieces are urgent messages from teachers, performers, activists and community organizers.
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| Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles (Duke University Press, 2008) is a unique analysis of how same-gender loving and longing intersects with religion, family, race and class all within the Caribbean context and how ostracism and alienation become the common factor and obstacle that stands in the way of true equality and freedom for far too many men and women.
Glave is a former Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently Professor of English at SUNY - Binghamton where among his course offerings he is now engaged in a class that introduces students to contemporary black gay/lesbian writers.
"The course is called "Politics and Courage: Contemporary African-American 'Queer' Writings," and in it we will cover an assortment of essays, poetry, short stories and films," Glave said. "The span of history is about 25 years and that includes everything from Essex Hemphill's Brother to Brother to the words of Audre Lorde.
I think the course is extremely relevant for my students but it is also a strange
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experience because in many ways the works that we cover I have lived them as a foundation for my life.
"For my students it is a history lesson. It's amazing when you consider that the project Tongues Untied [a semi-documentary film produced by Marlon Riggs with assistance from Hemphill that celebrates Black men loving Black men and posits it as a "revolutionary act"] is now 21-years-old and was made before some of these students were born.
I recognize how complicated this material can be - it's complicated because many of the authors were responding to other black writers who came before them and who were not gay. So the texts on which we concentrate are exploding a lot of stereotypes.
"Adding to the difficulty is helping students understand the nuances of black culture. One of my tasks therefore is to help my students grasp the historical context of the black experience in America and that too is quite complicated because it is so regionalized. [Being black in Atlanta is a different experience than being black in Boston.]
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| "The course is only a 14-week class but there is more black gay writing out there than ever before - even more than 2001 when I last taught this course." |
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" There are more black gay films that we can access and study. The result is that there is a lot for the students to take on but so far it has been a great deal of fun.
Sometimes I have to explain what the authors are talking about like in Essex's poem "American Wedding," where one black man is talking about placing a cock ring on his lover's penis. My students could not appreciate how Hemphill is playing on the image of the wedding ring with the cock ring if they didn't know what a cock ring is - and many didn't.
"The material has heavily sexual themes and deals with black bodies and so before we can discuss these profound works,
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I have to get some of my students past their shyness. We are moving along through the material quite well and in a progressive way but again, there's so much to cover that I don't even attempt to tackle figures like James Baldwin although he is referenced throughout the course - that could be a course all by itself."
Look for an opportunity to listen to Glave when he makes an appearance in your town. And read his books. You will go away enlightened and changed forever.
Thomas Glave can be reached at tglave@binghamton.edu or tglave@mit.edu.
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